Mom
by quondam
Summary: Third story in the 'Uncle' and 'Dad' trilogy. Already mother to two human daughters, Shepard encounters unique circumstances involving a Turian child while working as an advisor to the new Council. From MEK on LJ.
1. Chapter 1

_As requested, the third story in the 'Uncle' and 'Dad' universe. If you're interested, I'd recommend reading those two first to avoid some confusion. Simultaneously being posted on the masseffectkink community on livejournal._

___**Quick Recap:** After a visit to Palaven to meet Garrus' nephew three years post-Reaper War, Shepard and Garrus planned to start their own family. With all the life lost throughout the galaxy, each species looked to protect and preserve their own, which didn't readily allow for interspecies couples to adopt. Despite some struggle, Shepard and Garrus had a human daughter, Hannah, with another on the way, both via sperm donor. The new Council settled on Eden Prime since the Citadel was destroyed, Victus was made Councilor, and Garrus' father was promoted to Primarch. Shepard and Garrus found home on Earth after retirement from the military life. Somewhere in between all of this, there was angst, fluff, awkward father-in-law interactions, numerous crises of self, and brief appearances by a mix of Shepard's old crew._

This story picks up eight months after the end of 'Dad.' Shepard and Garrus are parents to two human daughters now, and after some consideration of the conversation she had with Councilor Victus (in 'Dad'), Shepard has taken him up on his offer to assist the new Council in something of an advising capacity. All of which leads to unique circumstances involving a Turian child. As far as a timeline goes, this puts us approximately around 9-10 years after the events of ME3.

* * *

Eden Prime. Beautiful Eden Prime. Well, there had been a few years in between where things had gone from stunning paradise planet to abandoned shit hole right about when Saren touched down on it's surface, but the years since the Reaper War had served to re-establish the colony to much more than it ever was before as the site of the new Council's base of operations. It really was the type of place that left many without the right words to describe it, and though there had been much disagreement with settling the Council on the planet that had initially been of _human_ colonization, most shouts of objection were silenced once their ships landed and they were bathed in the warmth and greenery.

It was beautiful, no doubt about it, but Shepard couldn't wait to get the hell off that rock.

Three days she'd been stuck there, buried in meetings and formal ceremonies, and putting on a brave face for the media that had gathered together. After the near-disappearing act she'd done since her unofficial retirement from the Alliance years prior, Shepard had the unfortunate displeasure of realizing firsthand how little things had changed; there would never be a lack of interest in gossip and scandal. And the former Commander Shepard turning up out of the blue as something of de facto advisor to the Council on the very day they welcomed the first new Council race into their folds… well, it would have the extranet buzzing for days. Maybe even weeks.

But she'd done her duty, hell, she hadn't even once felt the muscle memory of her right hook itching to be exercised when a few familiar, but aged, faces delved outside the realm of politics and into her personal life, a matter that she'd steadfastly insisted was just that—_personal—_and would never belong to the public. There were rumors out there, always had been since the Alliance had recognized her to be alive and breathing after the war. Rumors that of all the sentient beings in the galaxy, Shepard had taken a _Turian_ lover, and then in the years that followed, that she had fallen off the grid with that specific alien, and had even dared to start something of a family. Liara had always kept them abreast on the latest mentions of her around the galaxy, as only a precaution to her family's well-being and nothing more. Shepard and her friends, so it seemed, would never lack dedication in keeping the Shepard-Vakarians safe and unharmed. So Shepard wasn't about to let the words from her mouth be the ones that put them in jeopardy now, not after years of the solitude and peace they'd enjoyed.

"If you'll forgive me, Councilor Zaal'Koris," Shepard said, her hand offered and immediately welcomed by the Quarian, "but I'm due at the docks if I want to catch the last ship back to Earth."

Zaal'Koris nodded his head in thanks, the light below his visor flickering in time with his words. On Rannoch, Quarians had gone without their suits for years now, but off-world was a different story. The worries weren't as extreme as they had been, where a puncture had formerly come with the likelihood of needing antibiotics at the very least, but the Geth-immune boosting programs could only do so much. In accepting his position as Councilor for the Quarian race, he'd also come to accept that the bulk of what remained of his life would be spent within that suit while the rest of his people enjoyed their freedom back home.

"I—we—appreciate the help you've offered us. When we heard a few months ago that you were determined to get the Council to start considering new additions once more… well, I thought it would be years, a decade even, before we saw that progress. I've no question it's you we have to thank for this, Commander."

She held no rank any longer, but colloquially, Shepard knew she would always bear the title of what she'd once been. In some ways, it was more familiar than her own name, and she doubted anyone beyond the handful of close friends she had even knew her first name at all. Commander, she'd forever be.

"This Council's not like what was before," Shepard said in response. "They've learned from the mistakes of the past, and if they start forgetting it, I'm here to give them a kick in the right direction."

Oh the new Asari councilor had dragged her heels on the thoughts of admitting yet _another_ councilor to the mix—as if the last addition, humans, had only been yesterday. 'Think of who we'll have to allow in next!' she'd said in a fitful moment of frustration. 'Krogans?' Shepard wouldn't soon forget the look of horror the Asari had worn when Shepard had simply told her that she'd already spoken to Urdnot Wrex about who would fit the bill _when_—not if—it came time for the Krogans to take their rightful place on the Council as well.

"All the same," he continued, "you have my thanks. I suppose I shall see you here again soon."

"Not too soon," Shepard said with something of a smile, bowing her head in goodbye.

She extricated herself from the conversation as cleanly as possible, and though the crowd that had gathered to welcome the Quarian into the Council had thinned considerably as the afternoon and evening had worn on, Shepard still had to fight to work her way towards the outer edge of the meeting room. The escape was managed fairly well without further stalling as she dodged and avoided the bodies of those she knew to be talkers, moving more like the N7 officer she used to be rather than the war veteran with a bad knee.

In fact, she'd nearly thought she'd succeeded until she caught the sound of her name called from a familiar flanging voice.

"Commander." Victus said, following her down the steps.

"Don't!" She raised her open hand to him in the universal gesture for someone or something to stop. "You know damn well I've got a ship to catch out of here, so whatever it is, unless you're telling me the sun's going supernova or something else of that magnitude, it can wait." Shepard didn't stop for a second, proceeding down the rest of the way to the car where her driver waited, door open.

He rumbled with some laughter, not far behind. "At least let me ride with you. I've something to see to at the docks."

Teeth gritted, she rolled her shoulders in an irritated shrug of impatience. She needn't glance to her omni-tool to know the time and how close she was cutting it. Long gone were the days of the Normandy working as her private transport, flying to and fro across the galaxy as she pleased. She was a passenger now, and even her name probably wouldn't have been enough to hold a passenger vessel of that size in wait for her. "I won't stop you," she admitted in defeat and got in.

Councilor Victus joined her and though the first few minutes were met with silence, only the soft barely there sound of the sky car's engine and other passing vehicles, it wasn't too long before he cleared his throat to draw her attention.

"The other Councilors and I have been talking…"

"I know what you're going to say," Shepard cut him off. "And when I agreed to this, it was with the understanding that I'd only be here when absolutely necessary. If your requirements have changed, then it's something we have to talk about. I'll be glad to step down and let someone take my place." Whether she was bluffing or not, she doubted Victus would be able to come to a conclusive decision within the seconds allotted to form a response. Her cards were on the table. "Let's just get to the truth of what this is really about," she continued. "You're concerned about the Krogan having a seat on the Council."

His mandibles flared but made no sound. Victus may have become more worldly in regard to species relations since his time began as Councilor, but it wouldn't compare to the time Shepard had spent living beside her own Turian. She'd always have a leg up when it came to reading his features.

"Nothing gets by you."

The car came to a rolling stop. "You asked for my help, all of you. If you're going to second guess every one of my opinions then there's no reason for me to be here to begin with." Shepard moved to climb out of the car. By time Victus made it out, she already had her bag pulled from the trunk and slung over a shoulder. "Not saying it has to happen tomorrow or even this year. But in time, expanding the Council is going to need to happen. By inviting people in, rather than keeping them out, you're going to gain allies instead of creating enemies."

Victus' head shook in disagreement. Not with her, but of the position he'd been placed into by the Asari and Salarian portions of the council. Years ago, he never would have let himself be swayed like that, conned into using his friendship—and it was friendship, wasn't it?—with Shepard to help them get what they wanted. But he'd softened over the last few years, let his guard fall in the world of politics. It had never been his forte.

He walked with her inside the main terminal of the port, keeping up the grueling pace she set for them. "You're right, Commander."

Shepard slowed and came to a full stop at his admission. The corner of her mouth lifted in a grin. "Pains you to say that, doesn't it?" She teased.

"Don't tell Vakarian."

Around them, passengers of nearly every alien variety scuttled about, departing and arriving down to the planet. Sometimes it reminded Shepard far too much of the Citadel that had once been. Obviously the one glaring difference was that this was a planet, formed billions of years ago by happenstance and not a Reaper-created space station of dubious origin… and there wasn't a damn Keeper in sight. She'd never admit it to anyone except Garrus, not when she was supposed to be the paragon of interspecies understanding, but those bugs had always creeped her out. She was glad they'd gone out with the Reapers.

The numbers of people though, especially condensed around the part of the planet that was home to the new Council, and the richness in the variety of species, that was what reminded her of the Citadel. In the distance she heard the chattering of voices, words just far away and unclear enough for her translator not to pick it up properly, leaving the people buzzing in their native tongue. Children of all planets of origin giggled and threw tantrums, and there was even the harsh and painful cry of what she knew had to belong to something not more than a few months old. Her body ached at the reminder of her own children waiting for her at home. It had hurt to leave.

"I've got to go," she said with a nod to Adrien, "Hannah's been raising hell about me being gone and I like to pretend my six month old has even noticed I've been missing." Shepard shifted the heavy bag pulling at her shoulder, brow furrowing as she did so. "Didn't you say you had something to do here?"

"Yes," a sigh, "I should be getting to that."

There was another wail, and this time Shepard was unable to ignore it, glancing back in the direction it had come from. "Jesus, isn't someone looking after that kid? Sounds like it's being murdered."

She didn't fail to inwardly acknowledge how much had changed for her in the last few years. Catch her half a decade earlier and she would have more than likely turned a blind ear to that sound. Someone else's child, someone else's problem. But now, in some ways her body had finetuned and rewired itself to hear those piercing cries of her own children especially, but even the stranger infant howling nearby. She wouldn't express those sentiments to Victus of all people, for as close as they ever would be, they were still respected colleagues first and foremost. Garrus, though, he would have seen the pain on her features, and probably felt her uneasiness in himself as well.

"That would be why I'm here," he confessed, and started walking towards the proverbial eye of the storm. He was unsurprised to find Shepard following along with him; she could never stand not having all the facts.

"You're not—_are you_?" She asked, almost incredulous at the thought that Adrien Victus had fallen into fatherhood again. Turian age was always hard to tell, but Shepard knew him to be far older than he looked. The thought of him settling down and starting a family at his age, well it just wouldn't have been something she saw coming. Not after Tarquin.

"No, no," he was quick to reply as they approached a specific docking bay, the immediate area bustling with mostly Turian faces. Palaven would be the likely destination. "He was found a few weeks ago," Victus said, his head tilted in slightly towards Shepard's to keep the conversation to themselves. "Left at the medical center. A bit small, and from what they could tell, failed to imprint. Happens sometimes, no one really knows why, but it makes it hard on the mother to bond with the child. Thousands of years ago, a child like this would have been one left to die for failure to thrive. It's not exactly a shock when that long cultivated instinct kicks in for someone to leave their child behind."

The closer in proximity they were, the louder the cries resounded. They weren't dissimilar to those of her children, still laced with the same desperate terror and discomfort, but with the addition of flanging subvocals that echoed in time with all the rest. Shepard could recall the sounds of Garrus' nephew's cries from the days they had spent on Palaven, visiting with the newborn and Solana. Not once, even in the worst of that little boy's fits, had she heard such a pitiful sound as she was hearing now.

"Where is she?"

"The mother?" Victus shrugged, and it was evident by the stiffness in his frame that the cries were having an effect on him in some manner as well. He was a father, even if it had been decades since he'd last heard his own offspring make that sound. Giving a nod to the Turian charged with the care of transporting the infant, he peered down inside the carrier. "No one knows. Unfortunately, Eden Prime's become something of a port of call for civilians and military. It's not implausible that the mother could have even been a soldier and had it during shore leave, abandoning the evidence here. Concealing a Turian pregnancy doesn't take much."

Shepard discarded her bag at her feet, and without concern for Victus or the other Turian hovering nearby, reached for the Turian child. She was careful, first curling the bit of blanket around him to ensure his warmth, then extra cautious as the tiny thing squirmed with a deceptive amount of strength for the size that he was. He didn't stop making that hideous sound, but Shepard proceeded anyway in drawing him close to her chest, shoulder, and neck, imitating how she'd seen Solana do with her own son years ago.

"We kept him here to see if his mother would turn up," Victus went on, watching Shepard and the infant, "but there's only so long we could. He'll have better luck being back on Palaven than here, at least."

In the months leading to Hannah's birth, Shepard had been struck with the deep fear that when it came to her, those motherly instincts everyone talked of would fail to show. That, despite all her success in the military and otherwise, she would be absolutely unfit for motherhood. It hadn't exactly been a smooth transition, and the months after her daughter had been with them were full of a long list of mistakes—but more important, learning from where they'd gone wrong. As weary as being parents to two children made both her and Garrus, there was no dispute in the fact that the rearing of her second daughter came with less of a struggle, those skills and instincts already honed. And now, even to a child not of her own species, Shepard found herself drawing on the things she'd learned over the last four years.

At her shirt's collar and breast, she could feel tiny claw-like fingers and toes pawing at fabric and skin, dull talons scraping against her for purchase. It was much like the behavior in human newborns, their fists closing in around proffered fingers, except Shepard imagined for Turians, this clawing was much closer held to a human's rooting reflex. Holding tightly onto a parent in the Turian evolutionary line was probably as much of a difference between life and death as it was for human newborns to long for milk when they were fresh from the womb.

Her hand rubbed up and down over the small boy, from the back of his skull where his fringe would grow from as he aged, down over his clothed and blanketed back. All the while, in her ear, the baby continued to protest in distress, even with his death grip upon her clothing. He tucked his face in towards her neck and hair, burrowing in closely to her warmth, mandibles flicking with each of his deep breaths. For once in her life, Shepard was jealous she didn't have that large open cowl that all Turians had. He would have been right at home there.

"I thought you had a ship to catch?"

Shepard painfully pulled her eyes away from the Turian on her shoulder to glance back towards the opposite side of the terminal. Through the large windows, she could see the Earth-originating vessel in question, the one she should've been on minutes ago, breathing easy en route back to her family. Her feet, however, kept her rooted to the ground. "I—" She couldn't bring herself to finish that statement. "What'll happen to him on Palaven?"

Victus had the courtesy not to bring up the departing flight again, and instead reached his hand towards the baby, brushing the back of one of his fingers against the child's bare feet as they peeked barely from the bottom edge of the blanket. "They have places set up for this, you know," he said as a bit of a warning to her. _This isn't your cause._ "But I imagine they'll find a family to take him in temporarily after some time, then hopefully something permanent eventually."

She swallowed hard at the notion. It wasn't like she didn't have a clue what happened to abandoned children. There had been so many on Earth immediately after the end of the Reaper War, and part of her would always regret having returned to the military afterward instead of taking in one or two of those parentless children when they'd needed it most. She knew the stories, and though she wasn't sure on the facts in regards to Turians, she suspected the concept wasn't completely changed from what she knew. He'd be passed around for a few weeks, months, and if he was lucky enough, one of those families fostering him would stick. If they knew what clan he came from, it would have made things simpler with the hope that some distant relative of the same bloodline would have the honor to step in and claim him as their own. But without that…

Shepard let her cheek rest gently against the boy's head as he seemed to calm from the contact of another living being to him. Her eyes shut to fight the burning watering she felt there. Christ, she thought, when had she become so soft? She couldn't kid herself, though. Shepard knew the answer, and it was probably sometime around when Garrus had first started talking to their eldest daughter late at night while she still found her home in Shepard's stomach. The tough-as-nails Commander had died that day.

"He sounds hungry," Shepard ventured, reopening her eyes, this time to level them at the Turian they had found the infant with. "Were you just going to let him scream all the way to Palaven, starving?"

The Turian glanced from Shepard to Victus, and finding no support there, stood a little straighter. "N-no, Ma'am."

The answer didn't placate her, starting up slow pacing across a few feet of the flooring, reminiscent of the the action she'd undertaken on sleepless nights with either of her girls, desperately trying to rock them back into slumber. It wasn't just mindless moving though, and behind her eyes, she was calm and calculating, like she was planning the infiltration of a Geth base, rather than soothing a Turian child.

"Commander," Victus prompted.

Blinking, vacant eyes met his, a brow raised in question.

"If you don't leave now, you'll be stuck here until morning."

"I know," she said with an exhale, halting in place as her body relaxed, almost visibly deflating. "But listen to him," she said, her head nudging back towards where the infant was curled into her, exhausted coos still being chirped out intermittently. Just when she thought he'd worn himself down enough, he would let out another shrill sound, a sharp reminder of his presence, as if she could forget with his fingers pinching at her skin through her clothing. "Can you say you're willing to put him on a ship for the next eight hours, sounding like this?"

Victus' brow plates flexed and flattened, mandibles spread wide as he took a steadying breath. He exchanged a look with Shepard before his eyes fell back on the child's back as it was ever so often shaking with the tremor of his distraught nature. "No."

Shepard didn't say anything else, just bent at the knees and reached for the strap of her bag to sling it's straining weight over her shoulder again. "Get his things. We're going back."


	2. Chapter 2

"Listen, Hannah," Shepard said, voice raised a hair louder than her normal speaking volume in an attempt to cut through the four year old's incessant chatter on the other end of the comm link. Hannah had already gone through all the emotions in only a few minutes: first and foremost, happiness at hearing her mother's voice; then frustrated anger—or whatever passed for it in a child so small—when Shepard delivered the news that it would be yet another day before she could come home; dramatic tears in a desperate attempt at hoping it could sway her mother and the fates; and finally, distracted babbling, mindless and half not making any kind of sense since her mouth didn't work quite as fast as her head.

"Hannah, baby—" She tried again, but sometimes talking to her daughter was like talking to a wall. Hannah heard what she wanted to hear, when she wanted to hear it, and god have mercy on the soul of anyone else who thought they could convince her otherwise. "Put Daddy back on—okay? Shouldn't you be asleep?" That was it, diversion. Bring up a topic Hannah liked even less than ending the calls with her mother, and maybe she'd give in to the lesser of two evils.

She had other ideas and kept talking anyway. Something about her cat—that fucking _nuisance_ of a cat that never failed to find something new to shred every night—and a television program and even yesterday's lunch. Sometimes Shepard really had no idea how her daughter kept all those thoughts organized in her head. "Garrus?" Another tactic, calling for the reinforcements on the other end. Judging by the faint rumble of laughter in the background, she had an idea he was still listening in close by, more than likely taking enjoyment out of her helpless struggle. "Damn it, Garrus!"

"Hey, hey, hey now," he finally said, and Shepard could hear the switch from speaker to his personal comm by the fading out of her daughter's voice and the clarity of his. "I may have to call Jack and see if she's still got that swear jar for you to borrow."

"Very funny."

"I thought so. Now," his voice purred, "I'm not sure six minutes on the phone with Hannah was enough of a punishment. I think you should let her talk to Victus since he's the reason you're stuck there an extra day. Don't be a martyr, he deserves to share the pain."

Billions of miles away, communications routed through beacons and mass relays, and Shepard's cheeks pulled into a smile at his words. It was almost like being home with him—with _them—_on Earth. Almost. "I take it she's been driving you crazy."

"Mostly I've been playing interference, keeping her and Alice apart."

"Don't tell me," she spoke, voice straining in the back of her throat, "that Alice started crawling in the few days I've been gone?"

"Not yet, Shepard, don't worry," Garrus said with gentle reassurance. "I think she's kind of stalled out at the rocking on her knees routine."

"Well just don't put her down between tonight and tomorrow. Sabotage her if you have to, I don't want to miss it."

Together, they shared a moment of laughter over the connection before it dissipated down into quiet.

Garrus was the first to bend. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too. It's just one more day, I swear."

"This isn't going to turn into you calling me tomorrow morning and saying the same thing, is it?"

He couldn't see her, only hear her voice, but Shepard shook her head animatedly regardless. "I'll be home before dinner."

"Is it even anything interesting that they're keeping you for?"

"I'll—" Shepard glanced out the doorway of the office kept in Victus' apartment. There was no movement, at least that she could see, and only deafening silence since they'd arrived from the docks, the Turian infant having tired himself out and fallen into sleep. "I'll tell you about it tomorrow. I've got to go."

"Tell Victus he's on my shit list."

"I will. Love you."

"I love you."

Her words rushed out, before he could get a chance to disconnect. "Wait—Garrus?"

"Hmm?"

"Is it too much? Taking care of the two of them?"

"Why, you finally found a place with a good return policy?"

She could almost imagine the expression on his face. There would be a slight squint to his eyes as the plates of his face shifted, the ones on his cheeks upward while his brow plates leveled out in the kind of softness he'd only ever shown her. Maybe his mandibles would have spread and contracted once or twice too, an unconscious habit of his that seemed to be tied to some of his more sarcastic comments.

"Just… wanted to make sure. Goodnight, give the girls a kiss for me."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Shepard touched the screen of her omni-tool, severing the temporary connection it made when networked through Victus' line. She didn't move to leave, not right away, just slumped into the chair at the Councilor's desk, shutting her eyes as her head leaned back to rest against the high-backed seat.

Garrus' words filled her head, try as she might to think about anything else. He hadn't answered her directly, and though she suspected he would never admit to being overwhelmed in any situation—least of all by the idea of being father to two young human daughters—she didn't doubt him, either. She'd just needed to hear the sureness in his voice, even if it had come with smug sarcasm.

From the hallway, footsteps approached. "Shepard," Adrien said, rapping his knuckles against the doorframe. "Everything alright?"

Letting her eyes open, she smoothed a hand over the front of her shirt to force out the wrinkles, an old habit she hadn't been able to shake that stemmed from years of uniform wearing. "Garrus says you're on his shit list."

Adrien let out a huff of hair, though his mouth widened in amusement. "Surprised I wasn't already on it."

"It's a growing list," she said, standing and crossing the room. Shepard passed him on the way out of the office, following the hallway down to the main living quarters where both her belongings and the small sack of the newborn's necessities laid abandoned beside the sofa. On one of the couch's cushions with pillows packed around him, the baby rested, bundled tightly together in a swaddle more like a human child would have preferred. Truth be told, she didn't know if Turian infants even liked that cocooned feeling, but Victus hadn't indicated otherwise, and it seemed like the most logical next step in helping the boy preserve the heat he'd been rapidly losing.

Shepard sat down on the edge of the couch, stroked the back of her fingers over his brow and cheek, the plates tougher than her skin but still fairly pliable and without all the distinct definition like that of a grown Turian's. The sections of his nose crinkled as he slept, sensing her presence without waking.

"I want you to tell me I'm crazy and this is wrong," Shepard said aloud, feeling Victus a few feet off.

"You've always been crazy, but I can't say it's wrong."

"Why aren't you listing every reason against this? Why aren't you telling me he should be raised on Palaven, that he should have a mother who actually knows _anything_ about what it means to be Turian herself?"

"Because…" Victus took up his place on the arm of the couch, overlooking the two of them. "…You're a good mother. Ten years ago you protected my son for me while you could." He paused. "And because tonight I made it my duty to make sure you met this boy before you left Eden Prime."

Shepard's hand stilled, stroking ceasing against the baby's flesh. He stirred slightly, wriggling within the confines of his bindings at the sudden loss of her careful and constant reassurance. The last time Victus had kept something from her, he'd lost a son as a result of it. Times had changed though, and the idea that he'd orchestrated a few events of the night wasn't exactly the same as lying by omission about the knowledge of a bomb buried deep under Tuchanka's craggy surface. Ten years ago, she'd yelled and nearly hit the man for keeping a secret like _that_ from her. This time, Shepard didn't know what to say.

"If you and Vakarian _can't_, that's one thing. I know it isn't the ideal time with two young daughters already. But I don't agree with the policy back home, especially not when it means this one's likely to spend the next few months or years without parents to call his own while you and Vakarian would do a better job than anyone else they could place him with."

The baby turned his head and let out a high pitched yawn, eyes blinking slowly open. He gave up after a second, letting them shut again as the rest of his body once more tested the tightness of the blanket before going still. Sleep called back to him and Shepard allowed it, despite how hungry she imagined his stomach must've been. If the ache for nourishment didn't wake him fully soon, she'd have to do it for him, cries and screeching be damned.

"You're going to get hell for sticking your neck out for me, Victus."

"It's not a _council_ law, even if most other races have enacted similar clauses. Spirits, it's not even in perpetuity in Palaven's constitution. It was an emergency amendment called for by panicked bureaucrats that desperately wanted to try to sustain the population numbers however they could. Besides," he said, voice lighter, "you know how much I hate bureaucrats. That part of me hasn't changed."

Shepard cracked a smile. Most of the details from those weeks and months during the Reaper's assault on the galaxy were fuzzy, buried under a haze of stress and age, but she could still recall how ardently he'd refused to leave his men behind, and when he'd been informed he was Primarch of Palaven… he hadn't exactly gone into it with open arms either. That was when she knew he would be what not only his people, but hers, needed him to be. Someone who, just like her, didn't play by everyone else's rules—even if the last decade had drained most of that impetuousness from them both.

"Even without my support—you're still technically a Spectre after all this time," Victus reminded her.

Her head shook at what he was implying. "I'm pretty sure Spectre status isn't meant to be used to acquire an orphan for yourself."

"You think you'd be the first one to use it for a selfish reason? And you and I could both debate all night about whether this would actually constitute _selfish_ at all."

When she looked up, Victus had his omni-tool out, fingers typing at the holographic keys. "This is going to come back to bite us in the ass, isn't it?"

Victus paused, setting his focus on her rather than the omni-tool's screen. She'd seen that expression before, jaw slightly slack, sharp teeth bared, his particularly long and large mandibles spread wide. "Wouldn't be worth it if it didn't."

Deep in her muscle and bones, Shepard could feel that nagging part of herself, heavy with the weight of apprehension. It wasn't a question of _if_ someone found out, it was more a question of _when._ He was putting himself at risk for her, and despite the closeness they'd forged on the battlefield, in the war room, and in the Council's chambers, Shepard, for the life of her, couldn't understand _why._ It wasn't something he'd lose his spot on the Council over since the other Councilors seemed to strictly adhere to a policy of _I'll leave your questionable business alone if you don't bother mine_, but it would ruffle some feathers back on Palaven at the very least.

Then again, wasn't this what she and Garrus had been waiting for over the last few years? If someone had ventured to give them the chance, to make an exception for the savior of the galaxy and her right hand man, they more than likely would have been content to raise their own adopted Turian child, parents to only one. But Shepard couldn't say she regretted how life had turned out, because although children—especially the process of carrying them and giving birth to them—had never been something she had ever thought she would accomplish, as cliche as it was, she couldn't imagine it all having happened any other way. What would her life with Garrus have been like raising a Turian daughter or son, without Hannah and Alice? There was nothing in the galaxy worth of trade for the memory of his expression when he'd seen either of his daughters for the first time.

And here it was, presented practically on a plate for her. A chance to have it all. Opportunities like this, they rarely came twice.

Shepard swallowed hard at the final considerations she had to make. Maybe she had been wrong, should have told Garrus the real reason she'd stayed on Eden Prime and let him play a role in the decision making process. It was his life too, and they'd made the choice together to have the others, to become parents the first and second time.

The truth was she hadn't told him because she'd already made up her mind since she'd first held the child. If there was any possibility in the galaxy, consequences be damned, she was taking him home. For all the apprehension she presented with, Shepard didn't actually want someone to give her a real reason to back out.

Her palm came to rest over the boy's stomach and chest, layers of blanket between their skin though she felt the rise and fall of his chest as he slept. As she did so, Shepard could almost see the picture in her head: Garrus nuzzling the son she knew he always wished he had, finding joy in being a father to just one more. "Does he have a name?" she asked, without taking her eyes off the baby.

"It's Caius."


	3. Chapter 3

Some time ago, Garrus had started _sleeping._ It wasn't that he'd never slept before in his life, no, Turians needed sleep just like any kind of creature. It was just that what they required of it was decidedly less than most others. Maybe it was what had led his species to become the apex predators of Palaven, another link in the chain of things that had given them the advantage over the other lifeforms and prevented them from being weeded out far earlier on. Day and night, they'd been able to hunt and to protect. It was something that in modern times made them particularly efficient in their military, even all the other things, like the societal duty to public service, aside. While the rest of the galaxy sought out extended slumber, the Turians spent a few extra spare hours wide awake.

All of them, so it seemed, except for Garrus. And for that, he would always blame Shepard.

The transition had been a slow one, starting out in the days before the end of the war when after a particularly tiring session of reach-and-flexibility, Shepard would roll into him, arm draped over his slender waist, head nuzzled into the soft hide of his neck. At first, he'd told himself their post-coital cuddling was for _her_ benefit. With everything that had been going on, sleep was a rarity, especially for the commander. So if lying beside her in that big bed in her cabin was what it took to make sure she got some well needed rest, Garrus would stay there until the discoloration beneath her eyes had faded along with some of her exhaustion.

After the war, sleep had become more than just a necessity to make it through the day for Shepard. She'd woken from that coma that had held her body in a kind of indefinite stasis, and despite the fact that most of her more serious wounds had been treated as she'd slept, Shepard had still spent most of her days catching more rest, allowing her body to heal itself the only way it knew how. Garrus had stayed with her then, too, and when she was well enough, Shepard had inched across the space of her hospital bed and welcomed him into it, drawing the comfort and reassurance she needed from him. There had been nightmares then, almost every night, and Garrus couldn't recall even a single evening he'd spent apart from her, leaving her to fight the painful images on her own.

And when Shepard was pregnant with Hannah, there was no question about whether Garrus would have been asleep beside her through the months of exhaustion. Usually, so it went, with his hand on her stomach, feeling the light kicks of their daughter as he fell asleep, and the other arm curled around Shepard to offer her the support her tired muscles desperately needed.

Sleep was just another thing to add to the list when it came to all the ways that Garrus Vakarian-Shepard was a bad, bad Turian. But as the father of two small human children, he realized that perhaps he'd made an entirely huge mistake.

Hannah had been a decent sleeper, or at least she was as far as he knew after all the reading he'd done in preparation for his first daughter's birth. From the beginning, she'd gone a stretch of five or six hours without waking on most nights, content to stay asleep until hunger pains left her crying for her mother. It was a simple routine, one that involved Shepard or him fetching the infant from the bassinet to bring her back to bed, and letting the newborn nurse until her stomach was full, whereupon she promptly finished off with another hour or two of sleep between her parents. There was the odd bad night mixed in, where nothing could settle the little girl down properly and one or both of them had remained awake throughout Earth's dark hours in order to quell her crying however they could, but on the whole, Garrus and Shepard both knew that they had been blessed.

Their second daughter though, she had been obstinate from the start, and during her first week, Alice had more than earned her affectionate nickname of _Trouble._ Trouble, like clockwork, woke every two to three hours during the night, despite the longer stretches of sleep she seemed to desire during the day. And that crying, oh that keening had been particularly painful on everyone's ears, including Hannah's. Spoiled as she was, Hannah had been used to spending a few nights a week between her parents just as she had as an infant. After her sister's birth, however, Hannah—ever still the lover of sleep—had promptly moved herself back to her own bedroom and miniature bed to escape the intermittent waking. Garrus had been jealous of his daughter then, because damn if he didn't miss a full night's sleep as well.

Six months in, and Alice's sleeping patterns had changed just enough to be not quite as painful as they had once been, but as Garrus rubbed his balled up fist into his eye and yawned, he couldn't help but hate Shepard _just for a moment_ for ruining his Turian sleeping habits. Maybe he would have been a little better prepared if she hadn't turned him so downright slovenly over the last decade.

Another yawn struck him, this one louder and heavier than the first, as Garrus rubbed his hand along Hannah's back, her little body strewn across the length of the couch. Her face was buried into one of the pillows, hands gripping at the top edge of her blanket—one she'd received as a gift from Liara upon her birth and as such, was a little too small for a four year old—while her bare feet and calves were left exposed further down. She hardly went without it, the girl finding a magical kind of comfort in the inanimate object whenever needed, especially her afternoon nap. Garrus rose from where he sat on the floor beside the couch a few minutes after feeling her breathing grow shallow and even out, the sign that she had finally pulled away from consciousness, but didn't leave her there without bending back down to her and brushing his forehead over her scalp and tangled hair.

If there was anything he'd learned since becoming a father, it was that every minute your children were asleep was a gift, and one that shouldn't, under any conditions, be wasted. From the living room he headed to the kitchen and started the delayed clean-up from lunch earlier in the day, picking up plates and cups and brushing the crumbs from Hannah's grilled cheese onto the mess of dishes. Cooking for humans these days had become even more familiar than it was to make anything for himself, and he would have been lying if he said he hadn't grown somewhat fond of the traditional smells and sights of what his wife and daughter ate on a regular basis. Hannah always did, however, seem to make sure a few bites of whatever she was eating was shared with her father, and though his digestive system lacked the ability to gain any kind of true nutrition from her scraps of dinner and tiny child-oriented snacks, Garrus always played along, if only to hear his daughter giggle and see her smile.

There was a pleasantness to the domesticity of it all, even the feel of soapy water on his hands as he cleaned the dishes made of child-safe plastic and lacking sharp edges. Garrus Vakarian, former C-sec officer, vigilante, and war hero, loved nothing more than the space of their kitchen, from the bottles resting on the drying rack next to the sink to the drawings and other strange arts and crafts projects of Hannah's that littered the surface of their fridge. He may never have thought the day would come when he'd prefer the scrubbing of bottles to cleaning his rifles, but it had come, and rarely did he ever long for the life that he and Shepard used to have. It was quiet, it was peaceful, and Spirits did they deserve it.

Quiet was never meant to last long, though, and as Garrus dried his hands off on one of the small dish towels hanging off the handle of the oven, his omni-tool flashed and pinged, the particular tone of the note alerting him to the specifics. He pressed a few of the controls until a new screen appeared, and stood absolutely still and silent, waiting for further orders. He needn't hold long, for a few seconds later the omni-tool resounded again, this time without the alert but with the soft gurgles of his younger daughter on a direct feed from her bedroom.

Garrus sighed and glanced to the time. He thought he would have had more of it before Alice woke, but like always, _Trouble_ was always unreliable.

When he found her in the crib, Alice had rolled over onto her stomach, head and chest lifted, supported by arms below her. The presence of her father called to her, and she craned her neck a little further, not getting very far before her mouth pulled into the widest of gaping smiles a child of her age could muster. Her quiet jabbering only increased in volume at the sight of the man who had raised her thus far, and Alice became a stream of breathy and excited giggles, her body nearly bouncing where it was.

"You're in a good mood," Garrus said, returning with his own smile. Alice responded with inaudible mumbles and grew weary of the pressure on her arms, lying herself back down on her chest, feet kicking in the expression of her continued happiness at no longer being alone in the dim room. Garrus reached for her, taking Alice in his hands and drawing her to him as his forehead brushed over his daughter's in the non-verbal portion of his greeting. He settled her in at his hip, holding her to him, and asked, "it's because your sister's asleep, isn't it, Trouble?"

Unaware of the meanings to his words, Alice babbled, but Garrus took her answer as the affirmative anyway.

"Just happy to get me to yourself."

She pawed at his clothing, movements still not exactly perfected, and even set her wet and open mouth against the fabric of his shirt, chewing to her heart's content.

"Right, Dad," Garrus parroted for her as they left the girl's bedroom and walked the length of the house's interior until they reached the doorway to the back porch. Outside it was cool, not cold but not uncomfortably warm either, and the lack of humidity was something of a surprise, a rarity for the location they'd settled in. The part of Palaven he'd grown up in had been rather dry, as had also been the Normandy and the Citadel with their conditioned and scrubbed air. Even after the four and a half years that he and Shepard had made their home there on Earth, he had never quite gotten used to that near constant stickiness one encountered when outside.

He took a seat on the wicker loveseat on the deck, and there he shifted Alice from his side to his lap, letting her bare feet come to rest on his thighs while his hands held her securely around the middle. She'd gotten so big, no longer the gaunt little infant born three weeks ahead of schedule, but now the six month old grown tall and strong and chubby on her mother's milk. Alice continued to talk as she stood with her father's support, hands flexing and grabbing at the air in his direction, puckered lips sputtering with excess saliva.

"How's your tooth coming in?" Garrus questioned, and holding her with one hand, gently coaxed her chin down and mouth open a little more with the other. He could see the hint of white beneath her gum, her first tooth that had left her gnawing on any solid surface she could get her hands on. Trouble had surprised him in that regard, since her older sister had been an inconsolable mess at the cutting of her teeth, but so far Alice had taken the pain in stride. Missile to the face, first tooth, it was all the same. Alice Shepard-Vakarian was just like her old man.

"Mom's coming home today," he told her, as though she would understand. "Thank the Spirits too, because you'd have to start drinking formula soon and we both know how much you'd enjoy that."

Alice bounced on her feet and drew one of her hands to her mouth, gumming at her own fingers.

"You going to beat your sister to saying your first word? She was stubborn, didn't say a thing till her first birthday. Not you," he said conspiratorially, "you're going to surprise us."

On cue, she did her own infantile version of speaking, even with her fingers tucked inside her mouth. They were mostly vowel sounds, the same kind of nonsense she'd been at for awhile now, but every so often she would get locked in a loop of repeating the same sound, almost as if she was _trying_ but struggling, never having the experience or motor coordination to get it out right. "Mmm, mmm," she cooed.

"No, it's got to be Dad first. Daaaad."

Alice repeated the previous sound without hesitation, disregarding her father.

"Dad. Da."

She played a good game of _ignoring_ him, and instead stretched her hands towards her father. When he didn't move fast enough to bring her to him, the waterworks started almost instantly, all the muscles in her face contorting as eyes teared and lips pouted.

Garrus wanted to say he almost forgot how fickle such young babies could be, their moods changing at any second without warning, but Hannah, even at four years old, was still very much like her younger sister. For all their sakes, he hoped she grew out of it soon.

"Don't cry, don't cry," he repeated, trying to comfort her, and brought her against his chest where Alice gripped one hand over his cowl, her head pressed to his shoulder. Garrus stroked his hand over her scalp and did his best to take the edge off her mood. Sometimes, he knew, all they wanted was to be held. "You're alright, Alice. No tears." And just like that, the tension eased out of her. Garrus brushed his mandible against her head, scalp covered in the same color of hair as her mother and sister, and even touched his lips to her as well, mimicking the human gesture.

In his periphery, Garrus heard the oncoming approach of a skycar, which only meant one thing at their location: that someone was coming to see them, or in this case, _coming home._ Isolated as the house was, there wasn't truly any through traffic to pass them on by. With Alice still clutched to him, he stood and vacated the back porch, heading back inside to cut through the home. He saw Hannah on his way, still dozing on the couch though her cat with all its long white fur had curled up at the girl's feet and joined in on the afternoon nap. Even in sleep they'd become inseparable—though Garrus knew from the expression on the cat's face on occasion that the poor feline sometimes couldn't wait to get away from the terrorizing child.

His attention went back to the car he heard outside, doors and trunk being opened and closed. Garrus knew Hannah had been anticipating Shepard's homecoming—and Alice too, though she was too young to understand where her mother had gone, just that she'd be immensely happy to see her mother's face again—he had also been longing for her return home. It wasn't just the fact that he needed another adult to talk to in the flesh and not just over a comm, or that he missed sharing the responsibility of two children with her, Garrus just _always_ missed her. He wasn't sure if she understood that—the idea that he'd missed and longed for her since they'd parted ways after the Saren investigation ran to completion—but either way, getting to have her in his arms, to hear the sound of her voice, to breathe in the smell of her not just on their pillows… well, his world would be complete again with his family all in one place.

He opened the front door of the home and the driver climbed the front steps with a pair of bags belonging to Shepard, nodding to Garrus as he stepped inside and left her things just within the entrance of the home. His attention wasn't on the driver, though, but on his charge as she shut the car door behind her. Had it only been days? It felt like weeks to him since they'd said their goodbyes on the front stoop before she'd left for Eden Prime.

They'd lingered there, forehead to forehead, her fingers alternating in grazing over his fringe and mandible, while she held Alice in her other arm. It had hurt her to leave, she'd confessed, every urge in her body telling her to forget the promises she'd made to the Council billions of miles away, and to stay with her children and the man that was her husband in spirit, though not technically on paper. Shepard had left in tears that morning, and Garrus had spent most of the day consoling Hannah, as she'd rarely been without her mother for more than a half a day at a time.

Shepard lifted her head towards where he stood and just smiled, so wide he could see her nearly laughing in excitement. In his arm, he heard and felt the exact moment when Alice spotted her mother, as the once silent child's happy sounds returned twofold while her body wriggled in his grasp, arms straining towards her mother. Garrus felt exactly like their daughter did.

"Alice!" Shepard said, just loud enough for the six month old to hear her from the short distance. "You been good for Daddy?"

Knowing full well she had her mother's attention, she jabbered increasingly, even let out a squeal of laughter in delight.

"Of course you were. And did you miss me, my baby?" Shepard asked as she ascended the steps, closing the distance between her and her husband and child.

This was why he'd missed her. He missed not just the sound of her voice, but the way she talked to their children, the way their daughters reacted just at the sight of their mother. He missed the way the breeze caught her hair, still long since she lacked the want to cut it short like it had been most of her life, and how he knew Alice couldn't wait to get her fingers in it and tug on the strands. He missed the looks she gave him, the comfort her touch was—just as he could soothe their daughters when they were troubled or needing sleep, Shepard was the kind of balm that fixed him.

She quickly palmed her daughter's cheek as Alice broke into nothing more than a fit of giggles while her mother kissed the other side of her face. Shepard then turned to him after that, releasing the same kind of offensive on him, and Garrus couldn't help it, he was reduced down to the same kind of laughter his daughter had found while Shepard brushed her mouth over his mandible and mouth. Their eyes met for the first time in days as she pulled away from him, and for a second he was lost in the color of her eyes, and the reminder of how similar Alice's were.

"I missed you," Shepard said with a smile.

"Spirits, I missed you." In his hold, Alice continued to fidget, hands opening and closing as she tried to desperately grab at her mother. "Do you want her? She's about three seconds away from exploding if you don't hold her soon," he said, offering the weight of their child over.

Shepard made no move to take her, in fact took a step back and jerked her head towards the front door. "Not yet—Garrus, I need to _show_ you something." She slipped past him and inside.

He followed her in, though she didn't go far, and when Shepard turned back and Garrus could _really_ take her in, he noticed the blanket tucked over and covering her left arm and shoulder. His brow plates shifted in a questioning look. "Show me what?"

Shepard didn't say anything else, but instead peeled back the fabric that had cloaked a portion of her side, exposing her arm and what was cradled in it. Garrus didn't know what he was seeing at first, since whatever it was had been wrapped in another blanket below that, barely any of it left visible. It was small and looked almost unreal, like a toy of sorts as it lay deceptively still in the crook of Shepard's arm, only its face exposed. In fact, part of him had been convinced it was just that—a child's doll—until there was the fluttering of what he now recognized as mandibles and a low whistling sound of an exhaled breath. He stiffened, gaze locked on it, and then raised his eyes to Shepard. She was watching him.

"Where—?"

"Garrus—"

"_What_ did you do?" He asked, stricken and horrified.

"Christ, Garrus," Shepard said, firmer and louder to cut him off before he started again. "I didn't _steal_ him!"

The baby in her arms startled awake at her voice, eyelids blinking rapidly in a state of agitated panic. And then, all of a sudden, it let out a shrill wail. A shrill wail which absolutely, completely, terrified the baby in _his_ arms, and soon Alice joined in. Both parents independently started damage control, offering little comforts to the children like gentle bouncing and pacing. In the middle of it, Garrus glanced to the living room where Hannah slept.

"Bedroom," he said, and started walking, even as Alice continued to sob. Shepard followed wordlessly.

He thought for a moment that the short walk to their bedroom would somehow give him a chance to grasp and understand what had unfolded in the last ten seconds, but as they reached the room and he shut the door behind them, Garrus was only left worse off than he'd been. When he glanced back to Shepard, he half expected her arms to be empty, a cruel trick of his imagination—was he losing his mind? Had that disease of his mother's come for him, decades earlier than it had for her?—but the image remained the same. Shepard was pacing in front of their bed, the infant now drawn up to her shoulder as she rubbed a hand down its back, an action she'd done with both of their daughters.

"I don't…" Garrus shook his head as he watched her. "What's going on?"

Shepard sat at the edge of the bed, and after turning her head to the child and murmuring softly near its auditory canal, she looked back to him. "This is why I had to stay an extra day."

The worst of the crying had stopped, but Alice continued to whimper at the foreign sound of the Turian's more high pitched screeches, even if they'd grown softer and less panicked. He tried to ignore it, and instead focus on what Shepard was trying to explain. "It had nothing to do with Victus?"

"No, it did," she corrected. "I was at the dock, ready to head home and he'd come with me to take care of something… and that was where I met him." Her head tilted in towards the infant. "An orphan they were sending back to Palaven to try to find someone to take him in."

He didn't say anything, couldn't even form words, so he just listened as she explained.

"He never imprinted with his mother and was abandoned on Eden Prime. Victus thought… that he'd be best off with us. Garrus—Jesus—the way he was crying last night, I couldn't let him go."

"But we can't, Shepard. If we could, we would have years ago. You know this isn't something they'll allow." It had hurt for a long while to know the option of ever having a son or daughter that resembled him in even the most basic of ways would never be an option. Some parts of him _still_ wondered what it would have been like to raise a Turian child alongside—never _instead_ of, because now that he had his girls, he could never think of life without them—their human children.

Would it have been different? Or exactly the same? Would fatherhood feel any different? But they'd known years ago that with the way things were since the war, there wouldn't be a hope of that any time in the future. Turians, as it was, were less prone to giving their children up for adoption to strangers, not to say anything of the temporary laws that had been enacted on Palaven that were meant to protect the orphans and keep them close to home.

"We can," Shepard insisted. "Victus… he worked some things out. Garrus, he's _ours." _She raised an extended hand to him, urging him closer.

Garrus obeyed, his body moving of its own accord.

The baby in her arms was shifted down from her shoulder despite the dulled claws he saw gripping and pinching at the fabric of her clothing. Shepard offered sounds of reassurance to the child as he rested in her arm on his back, mandibles flaring at each audible but slowly calming protest he gave. It wast the first time Garrus really got to look at him, and as he sat down beside Shepard, his eyes were locked on the infant.

His skin and plating were paler than his own, but it would darken after puberty, most likely. He knew nothing about the child, but he could date his age to be no more than three or four weeks based on his physical features alone. He was scrawny and tiny, having not hit his first growth spurt that came in a Turian's first few months. Mandibles, likewise, were small, and his talons were near non-existent, appearing more like human fingernails. His fringe was cropped closely to his scalp, and though it would grow in childhood, he knew the majority of its lengthening would only come at puberty as well. And when he caught the boy's eyes, he saw they were more Shepard's color than his own blue.

He was tiny, but a handsome boy. Garrus' chest swelled in some kind of pride he wasn't sure he should have. Shepard's hand stroking Garrus' cheek brought him back to the moment.

"His name is Caius."

Something pulled at his heart, and Garrus felt himself passing a calmer Alice to Shepard's free arm as she allowed him to take the Turian child. He handled him with the same care and caution he'd used on his newborn daughters and his nephew, but there was a lack of familiarity with the unknown shape and weight of this baby. Caius' cries returned at the disturbance and the new scent, and Garrus reacted just as he would have for Alice, brushing the back of his fingers to the boy's head, even leaning in and whispering softly to him in hopes that it would assuage his fears.

The smell of Caius was different than his girls, perhaps something close to earthier, rather than sweeter, and despite how foreign it was, it wasn't unwelcome. Garrus shut his eyes and let himself be bathed in the scent. Beside him he could hear Shepard talking to Alice, something about _'Home for five minutes and all you want from me is to eat,' _ and then the sound of clothing rustling and their daughter's happy gurgles as she latched on at her mother's breast like the old pro that she was by now. Afterwards, he once again felt Shepard touching him, this time her hand at the back of his neck and head, caressing his skin. She moved closer, leaned against his side.

"He's our son," she sighed.

"I don't even know what to say," Garrus replied, finally lifting his head from the intimate closeness he shared with the boy, and looked back to his wife. "I'm dreaming."

"No," she laughed, but settled herself down when Alice whined at the commotion. "I know there's not time to adjust to it. We had more than nine months with the girls, between doctor's visits and finally getting pregnant and having them… but I didn't think we'd have the chance again."

"Why didn't you tell me? Last night, you knew when you called—why didn't you tell me then?" He was surprised by the accusation in his speech.

Shepard's face fell a little, brows furrowing together as she took her time in studying him before speaking. "I was afraid you'd say no, even after how much we've talked about it. That maybe it was just an idea to you, one that was safe since we knew we couldn't have it, or that you'd be the logical one and tell me that we couldn't, not with two children already, not with everything else."

She was right in that regard, because behind everything else he felt, those thoughts were buzzing in the back of his mind. They had two children under five, one still a baby; it would never be easy to add a third to the mix, especially when that third was another species entirely, one that neither of them had any real experience in caring for. Not to mention the fact that they made their home on Earth, and though he knew the planet was more populated by aliens than it ever had been since many had decided to settle and stay on Earth after the war, Garrus—and now this boy—would always be the extreme minority. What supplies they needed for him, they came shipped from other planets usually, and it would only be the same for Caius. It just wasn't very practical.

"And what if something changed?" Shepard whispered, "what if it fell through at the last moment? I was scared to get on the ship today, thought that someone would be waiting to take him back even with everything Victus had done. How could I tell you that after all this time, you were going to have a son—a Turian son—and then not bring home home with me?"

Her eyes were wetted with unshed tears and Garrus couldn't help but brush his hand over her cheek and through her hair to allay some of that distress. "I wish you'd told me," he said, contrary to the soft touch he gave. "I had a right to know."

Shepard's head bowed apologetically for half a breath. "If you really don't—"

"Stop it. I didn't say that. But you're not my commanding officer anymore, your word isn't law," he said wearily. "We're equal, we both make the decisions. And something _this_ big… you should've asked."

She looked away from him and down to Alice, their daughter's eyes concentrated on her mother's face even when Shepard wasn't looking to her. A finger brushed over the girl's puffy cheek, and Garrus then saw Alice reach—albeit, with bad aim—for her mother's hand in particular, satisfied when she finally took hold on Shepard with her own little fist.

"This is what we wanted, Garrus," Shepard said, and then regarded him, "and I wasn't going to let it pass us by. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but not sorry for taking him in."

The infant at his chest made a somewhat playful cry, this one not out of distress, but more a call for attention. Both of them cast their gaze onto the baby.

"Can you tell me you're not happy?"

Garrus kept quiet, studying Caius. A son, he told himself, repeating the words in his head. A son. Two daughters and a son. He was a father to three, two human and one Turian.

Caius squirmed and Garrus readjusted him, allowing the boy to be be cradled to his chest and shoulder, just as he'd seen Shepard do when Caius had been at his worst. On instinct, the infant grasped for his adoptive father's cowl, head resting against the ridge of it as he let out a pleased purr. Content, Garrus thought as he looked down to the baby nestled into him, the boy was absolutely content for a moment.

"I felt like he was always trying to do that on me," she guessed, "just didn't have the right parts." In something akin to amazement, she spoke again, this time smoothing over the back of Caius' skull, neck, and his own tiny beginnings of a collar beneath his clothing. "He's happy, I think. Or at least just not scared out of his mind, which is an improvement in its own right."

Garrus would have to agree.

He moved in close to her, even with the baby tucked up against him, and let the harsh cut of his mouth join her softer lips. Shepard released the kind of satisfied hum into his mouth that rivaled the other comfortable sounds coming from Caius at Garrus' chest and Alice at Shepard's breast.

"Missed that too," she noted as he pulled back.

"Mmhmm."

Shepard rested her head to his shoulder, focus settled on Caius. His eyes were shut tight. "Don't be mad."

He slanted his head across the top of hers and released a long held sigh. Alice's feet thumped against his arm from the close proximity. "I'm not."

"Good."

"But you're telling Hannah."


	4. Chapter 4

_Set from Hannah's POV._

* * *

When Hannah woke, the natural light that had illuminated the living room earlier in the afternoon had dimmed considerably, leaving the space veiled in greys and blues. She felt warm, too warm, and harshly pushed at the blanket that covered most of her, wiggling her feet free of the cat perched over them. The feline glared and made haste, away from the girl's disturbance and down the dark hall.

Her thoughts came back to her slowly as she rolled onto her back, mismatched shirt and shorts twisted about her, leaving a strip of tummy exposed. The cool air on it was a blessing. It always took awhile for her to get her bearings after a solid nap, almost as if she'd forgotten who she was for a brief moment in time until the facts returned to her. The living room was empty, that much she could see even through her sleepy eyes, so she focused on listening for sounds instead. Where was her Daddy? And Alice?

For a moment, a wave of panic washed over her. Had they gone somewhere without her? She wasn't sure what scared her more: the idea of being alone in the house, with all its dark corners and the sound of water crashing down below (her mother had always been sure to remind her that under no conditions, absolutely none, should Hannah ever make the trek down to the beach at the foot of the hill on her own—the gate on the porch was locked, she knew, but the _possibility_ of harm scared her anyway) or that her Daddy had gone somewhere with her sister and the two of them were undoubtedly having _fun_ without her. Her lips pouted, brows downturned at the far edges in contemplation of the lesser of two evils.

That was when she heard the ruckus from the next room. The kitchen. Following that came the smell: scents that felt _warm_ and like home and made her belly rumble as soon as her nose deciphered what she was breathing in. Dinner time. And by the smell of it, it was something good.

Hannah forced herself from the couch finally, doing a half-hearted job at fixing the clothing she wore. It would never be what her parents saw as presentable, but she got it just comfy enough to not feel the cloth too tight at her throat. Her mother had put her in something called a _turtle neck_ once when they'd gone to visit Uncle Kaidan in Vancouver and she'd made Mommy promise that never again would she have to wear such an obnoxious piece of clothing, with its strangling neck and too-long sleeves. It just did not permit for the kind of playing she preferred. Then again, if it was up to her, Hannah would hardly ever wear anything around the house. It was all too restricting.

She followed her nose just like she'd heard them say dogs did in some of the cartoon vids she watched early in the morning after her Daddy made her breakfast, and for a second Hannah nearly giggled at the thought of her _actually_ being a puppy, sniffing out her next meal around the house. It was a silly idea, one that led her to imaginings of a little dog wearing puppy-sized versions of the clothing she actually wore. She wondered if her parents would recognize her if she'd woken up from her nap as a puppydog and not a human. Yes, she decided, they would. And then after she got done licking their faces and getting scratched behind the ears, she'd go and chase the cat.

The light from the kitchen bled into the hallway, confirming her suspicions. Her sister was babbling, _of course_, she never shut up lately and Hannah sometimes found it cute, but when Alice decided to put Hannah's toys in her mouth… all bets were off. Rounding the corner, she found her father pushing a tray into the oven and shutting it closed, another thing her parents had warned her about, one more item she was never to touch on her own, and after the way her mother had yelped one time after burning her fingers on a pan hot from the oven, Hannah knew she never wanted to. If she grew up and had her own babies some day that she needed to cook for, well her mate would have to do all the cooking because she was certain she never wanted to know what that pain felt like.

"Daddy," she said, her voice a little croak from disuse, and headed for him, wrapping her arms around his legs, careful of his spurs. He had a good smell, a safe smell.

"I didn't think you were ever waking up," her father said. "Hungry?"

She could feel his fingers in her hair as he patted her scalp, disentangling the worst bits from the usual mess her long hair ended up in after any kind of sleep. He was gentle, but she squeezed him a little tighter in a distraction from the tugging at her hair. "Mm-hmm," she affirmed in a mumble.

"It'll be a few more minutes, but I've got a surprise for you."

Unlike her mother, Hannah was not yet jaded enough to hate surprises. They weren't ever bad, just good, and usually ended up with either of her parents passing her a gift or sometimes it was even a visitor to the home. Last time they'd said surprise, it had been her parents' friend James that she'd met a few times before—or at least a few times that she could remember—and not only had he spent most of the time being her playmate, but he'd brought her a few trinkets from his travels, things you couldn't get on Earth. They were in a box in her room somewhere, sealed up along with the rest of her treasures, and most likely beside the box of seashells she and her mother kept in collection.

"Ice cream for dinner?" She hinted at, letting her stomach do the hopeful talking for her. Her Daddy laughed and she could feel his body shake. It made her smile, releasing him just enough to look up and watch him grinning back at her. There was the sound of something else, footsteps maybe, but Hannah paid it no mind, lost in her father's expression. That was, until, he motioned his head back towards the opposite end of the kitchen.

"Hannah!" Her mother sing-songed, calling for her daughter as she entered the room.

It took her a second to understand. Mommy had only been gone a few days—though sometimes, especially at night, it felt like forever—and Hannah knew she'd promised to be returning soon, but it hadn't ever felt like it would ever really come, like maybe this was just how life would be for the rest of it. When she thought about it like that, it always made her cry, and her Daddy had wrapped her up in his arms and promised that it wasn't true. She believed him then.

Hannah pulled away from her father once her eyes and brain confirmed the mirage in front of her, and she took off running across the kitchen floor towards her mother. She had her arms open and waiting, and when Hannah reached her, she tossed her full weight into her mother, arms wrapping around her neck while she felt her mother's arms around her back, standing up with Hannah held in her arms. Mommy smelled good. Soft, but still strong. She smelled safe too. Tears pricked at her eyes and Hannah desperately didn't want to cry, didn't want to be the little girl like her sister was, wanted to be four and not three, but she couldn't help it. She was happy.

"Mommy," she whispered, voice tight, and then there was the warmth of her mothers lips kissing her cheek, her nose, her forehead, her neck. It broke Hannah's resolve and soon her mother wasn't just kissing, but wiping away tears, too.

"Oh baby, I missed you."

Her mothers eyes were wet just like hers, and it gave Hannah some comfort to know she wasn't _alone_ in that overwhelming feeling. She smiled through the happy-tears, and Mommy quickly returned it before hugging her tightly again. Her head against her mother's shoulder, Hannah could see Daddy watching them, still smiling like he had been before, but it was softer. She released a hand from around her Mom's neck and instead stretched her fingers out in his direction. It didn't take him more than a second to join them, curling his arms around them both, and as Hannah felt the warmth of both her parents, breathed in the scent of the two of them, even felt both of their hands soothing at different parts of her—her father's hand rubbing one of her small calves, her mother's hand at her back—Hannah gave herself over to the heaven she felt. Between Mommy and Daddy, there was no place better.

Eventually it had to end, and her father pulled away to move back to the stove top, stirring at something with his attention still on her and her mother. She was carried on her mother's hip, just like she could always remember, and though Hannah knew she was getting too big for it, that she should use her own two legs like the grown person she was trying to be, the last thing she wanted was to be put down. They walked by Alice in her highchair who squealed and reached for them as they passed, and though her mother ran a hand over Alice's thin amount of hair, Hannah found selfish pleasure in the fact that her mother kept her attention on _her. _Maybe for a little while she could pretend it was like before Alice was born, when it had just been the three of them and Mommy didn't go away for work, just stayed home with her and Daddy all day long.

Her mother sat her on the edge of one of the bare counters, and like her father had minutes before, began finger combing at Hannah's messy locks.

"Did you miss me?"

Hannah looked up to meet her mother's eyes. "I _always_ miss you," she insisted with emphasis. "Didn't want you to go. You don't have to go again, do you?" She pleaded.

"Not for awhile," Mommy reassured, and Hannah allowed herself to trust in it. Her mother didn't lie, she wouldn't lie about this. "Did you guys do anything fun while I was gone?"

"Nooo," Hannah drawled.

"Hey!" Daddy called, and immediately Hannah began to giggle at his chastisement. "So you had absolutely no fun with me while Mom was gone? I guess Alice and I can go to the movies on our own next time."

"She just _cried," _Hannah said, arguing her case. "We almost had to leave!"

"Spoiled your fun, huh?" Her mother said with a smile and a glance over to Alice. "You've got to go easy on her, Han, she's just a baby. You'll have to teach her how to behave better as she gets older, won't you?"

It was almost like her mother was giving her formal orders, so Hannah nodded, feeling entrusted with her special duties. For Mommy, she'd have to do her best.

"Is that it? You didn't do _anything_ else? Just slept for the last few days and went to the movies?"

"Went to the park," she supplied when prompted. "Groceries."

"How brave," Mommy said and looked to her father. She was teasing him, Hannah knew. "Grown Turian at the store with two little girls. Tell me, Garrus, are our cabinets full of cookies and candy? Did you at least put up a good fight against her?"

Hannah's face wrinkled at the use of her father's name. She understood that his name couldn't simply be Daddy, because she'd heard other children from pre-school and the park call _their_ Mommies and Daddies by the same name. Regardless, though, there was something strange about hearing her parents refer to each other by their actual names. It almost made it seem like they had a life _outside_ of her and Alice, and Hannah refused to believe such a thought. They were hers, she was theirs, and there was nothing else.

"I tried," her father said, but Hannah could recall the look he'd given her when he put the box of animal crackers in the shopping cart before she had even reached for them herself. They were a favorite between them, as they always meant stories from her father about all the different animals back on the planet where he was from and she varied her time between eating them and making them dance across the table. "You know I can't resist her."

"I know," her mother let out a breath and looked back to her, "neither can I."

She studied the face above her, the bigger nose and sharper chin, and Hannah wondered if she'd get them too when she was older. She had her mother's freckles, or at least she did when she'd been out in the sun all day, her father always teasing the two of them about coming in from the beach with dirt on their faces. Which he then followed up with trying to brush away the imaginary debris from her cheeks and then tickling at her neck and arms until she could hardly breathe. She had her mother's hair, too, but not her eyes. Alice had her mother's eyes, and it made Hannah jealous sometimes, wondering if her mother felt more affection towards her younger counterpart because she was that inch closer to their mother. Maybe Alice would even get those freckles too, and they'd no longer be special. Then again, her mother always reminded her that she had the color of her Daddy's eyes and that she found nothing prettier than them. Hannah would have to remember that, use it to tease her sister with when Alice got old enough to understand.

Hannah was lost there, not paying attention to her surroundings even when her mother turned away to say something to her father, and impolitely reached a hand up to grasp at her mother's hair and tugged as gently as she could. Mom just tried to pry her fingers away from the strands and Hannah gave up the fight now that she had her attention, but Mommy was looking at her differently now and it left Hannah unsure.

"I've got to talk to you about something," she said, and it was serious, not playful like it had been before and usually was.

"About what?" Hannah saw her father leave the room after pushing at one of the buttons on the stove to turn the heat off, but she looked back to her mother as she spoke. Hannah had a bad feeling in her stomach, uncomfortable.

"You know sometimes little boys and girls aren't as lucky as you are, right? That's why we give away food and your old clothes and toys, because there are a lot of children out there who don't have places to live or anything to play with."

Hannah nodded, busying her hands at her mother's blouse, pulling and twisting at the fabric between her fingers. She was trying to listen, to pay attention, to understand what her mother was saying so she didn't disappoint her. "Uh-huh."

"Well sometimes it's even worse than that. They may not even have anyone to take care of them. No Mommies and Daddies, Hannah."

It was a hard idea to process, but Hannah thought back to the last few days, how sad she had been when she feared her mother wouldn't come back even if she had her Daddy with her anyway. It had felt awful. "Where are they?"

Her mother shook her head. "Sometimes they die, they go to be with your Dad's Spirits. Or sometimes they can't take care of their baby, so they give them to someone else with the hope that they can love their baby for them. Some people just aren't ready to be parents yet, or don't have the money to do it, Han."

"We can give them money," she offered as an easy solution.

"We do, baby. That's a good idea."

Hannah felt a moment of pride in her thinking, especially as her mother leaned in and kissed at her forehead, brushing aside the lengths of bangs growing long.

"When I was away," her mother spoke as she pulled back, and Hannah looked up to meet her mother's gaze, "someone asked me if I wanted to help one of these children. What do you think I said?"

Before her words were even out, Hannah was nodding. "You said yes."

"But they don't want me to just give them toys or money or food, Hannah. They asked me if I would take care of one like they were my own baby, asked me if I would love them."

Brows pushing together, Hannah looked back down at her fingers pulling at her mother's shirt. She was trying to follow, really trying, but there was a piece missing. "I don't understand, Mama."

"There was a little boy," she said, cupping her daughter's cheek to make sure she had her full and undivided attention. "He's a Turian like Daddy. And he has no one to hold him when he cries, or make him breakfast, or to play with. Can you imagine how it feels to be so lonely?"

Hannah shook her head. She really couldn't imagine that, to have absolutely nothing when even at her saddest moments she always had _something_ or _someone._ Mommy and Daddy had gone out a few times without her, but someone was always there to watch her, and without them she had her blanket and her toys and her cat, even if it didn't like to play all the time. When Alice was born, Aunt Liara had stayed with her while her mother and father were at the hospital overnight. She'd never been alone. "Is he sad?"

"He is, baby." Her mother was taking a deep breath, like she did sometimes before she told her to clean up her things when she'd already stayed up past her bedtime. "So I told them I would take care of him, that I'll be his Mom, and your Daddy will be his Dad. And you and Alice, you'll be his sisters and play with him so he doesn't feel so sad and lonely all the time."

She felt like she'd heard some of this before, but couldn't remember the details quite as clearly as she once had. There were pieces that Hannah could recall of her life before Alice was born, but now they felt so far away, like she had always been with them even if Hannah knew there was a time when her mother and father were just her own.

"He's going to be your brother, Hannah."

Her lips pursed as she considered what her mother was saying now that the terms were laid out simpler. Venturing a glance towards her sister, who not more than a few minutes ago had been actively playing but was now sleepily dozing in her chair, she thought of having to share her parents with not just one other person, but yet another. An unknown. She still got that feeling sometimes when she saw her parents with her sister—jealousy, Daddy called it—and she already felt it pooling in her stomach at the notion of even _less_ time with their undivided attention. Some part of her knew it was wrong to feel that way, especially when her mother had just finished explaining how much the little boy—_her brother_—needed them. Hannah genuinely thought he deserved a family, everyone did, she just wasn't sure it should be her own.

"I don't want to share," she said quietly, avoiding looking at her mother's face. There were arms around her soon enough, nestling her in close.

"I'm still yours, you don't have to share all of me. Some things will always be ours, like the seashells. Those are just ours," her mother whispered against her hair. "I just know how good of a big sister you are to Alice, and how good you're going to be to him."

Mommy was right. She liked Alice when she wasn't crying all the time. Hannah was sure she was going to be the one to teach her baby sister to crawl, Alice just had to work on it a little more. Maybe she could even teach her brother to crawl. But still, the thought of losing her parents to another was a deep pain, and Hannah gripped her hands into her mother like the physical closeness could keep her from going far. Her mother's hand at her back was a comfort she needed.

"It would make Daddy and I very happy," she said, releasing her daughter to look to her, "if you'd agree to be a big sister again."

From behind her mother, Hannah could hear the sound of her father's feet on the wooden floors as he got closer. He wasn't alone, though, and there was a muffled cry, this one sharper than any she'd ever heard from her sister.

"Do you want to meet him, Hannah? It's okay if you don't. We thought you'd want to say hello."

Inside, Hannah was split down the middle between anxious jealousy and curiosity. Her mother stepped aside to allow her to get a visual on her father and the newborn cradled in one of his arms and Hannah pressed the side of her face into her mother's chest from where she sat on the counter, but never took her eyes off the room's newest occupants. Gently, and almost imperceptibly, she nodded against her mother, curiosity winning out.

Up close, the baby wasn't what she expected. Her mother _had_ said Turian, but she'd never seen a baby Turian before, except for her cousin and he was a few years older than her as it was. This one wasn't soft and wrinkly like her sister had been, wasn't chubby and toothless. With wide eyes she watched him where he laid in her father's arms, his short mandibles flaring, small teeth catching in the light every time he made a sound. Tiny too, the size of some of her baby dolls and stuffed animals. No, he wasn't what she expected.

"His name is Caius," her father said, and inched even closer so she could get a better look.

"You can touch him," Mommy encouraged, and led the way, brushing her finger tip along one exposed arm. He reflexively gripped at her finger. "You try, Hannah."

She didn't want to, he was so bug- and lizard-like, hardly different from some of the creatures that lived in the woods surrounding their home, or so she believed in that moment. While he did have the same features as Daddy, there was a disconnect between the baby and adult versions of each other. Her father dropped his forehead to the top of her head, though, in a silent brush of encouragement, and Hannah found herself brave enough, hesitantly offering a hand to the baby. Much more dextrous than human babies even months older than he, Caius had no problem in immediately gripping tightly at her offered fingers.

Hannah stared, and then all of a sudden, giggled. Caius opened his eyes at the loud sound, watching her, but made no peep.

"He likes you."

Her father's words finally drew her attention away from the baby and up to him instead. "He's ugly."

Both of her parents had to laugh at that, and the jostled Caius squeaked, releasing Hannah's hand. Nearby, Alice also woke, tearing into a fitful cry.

"Not everyone can be as cute as you," her mother said as she turned to gather Alice in her arms. "I think you said the same thing about Alice when you saw her the first time."

She watched as her father moved the baby to his shoulder, nuzzling his jaw in close to Caius' head which left the infant rapidly reaching a calm. Her Daddy didn't leave her out, and he stretched his free hand towards her, settling his open palm on her cheek. Her mother, similarly, wrapped her free arm around her. It reminded Hannah of the hug they'd given her earlier, just the three of them without Alice or Caius.

"Can he go in the water?"

Her father nodded. "I go in, don't I?"

"But you don't _like_ to."

"Well, then you'll have to show him how to have fun in the ocean and on the beach."

Hannah's lips pressed together in a flattened line, deep in concentration and thought. What came from her mouth had nothing to do with the waves or the sand. "Will you still have time for me?"

"Oh, baby," her mother said, hugging her in close with the arm that wasn't holding her sister. "Always."

"Always," Daddy repeated.

It was the answer she was looking for. Always.


	5. Chapter 5

_Admittedly, this section sort of ran away from me when I was writing it and ended up being mostly fluffy filler nonsense. The story is winding down and the next installment will feature an ounce more of plot._

* * *

It was early, far earlier than either of them usually liked, but time had been at something of a premium for the last few years. Shepard hadn't taken a glance to the clock, but the not-quite-bright color of the sun filtering in through the thin material of the window shades was enough of an indication of each precious second as it ticked away.

Beside her, Garrus was lying on his stomach, face turned towards the end table and bedside lamp that remained off. Shepard closed the distance created between them throughout the night—for even after ten years, she fell asleep with her body pressed to his—and draped herself along the curvature of his carapace. It was large and bulky compared to most Turians, and she'd never gotten an answer as to whether that made it even _more_ attractive or less so to his own species, but she'd simply grown to see it as the standard. As far as she was concerned, he was the baseline for all the rest, and however other bodies looked beneath their clothing and armor, she didn't care to know.

"Wake up," she whispered, kissing over the crest of the ridge at his back, then dipped in lower to latch her mouth to the softened leather-like flesh at his throat, sucking and nipping in a manner that had always been much more human than Turian, but that over the years Garrus had grown to love just the same. Her hand slipped from the sheets to curl around the other side of him, palm sliding between bed and his belly, fingers massaging the skin of his waist.

Garrus gave a low mumble in reply and Shepard persisted, his warm skin to her slightly cooler body as she shifted more of her weight atop him. This time, she was a little sterner when she spoke. "Get up, Garrus."

"I'm up," he feigned, still mostly locked into sleep.

"You're not."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmhmm," Shepard hummed, even as she climbed over and fitted herself into the sliver of bedspace left on the other side of him. Garrus reflexively put his arm around her, holding her close to prevent her from tumbling off the edge while she tucked her head in beneath his chin.

"Something wrong?" His flanging voice sounded even rougher after the hours of disuse.

"No."

"Then why, Shepard, are you waking me up at this hour?"

"Because," she said, lifting her head to apply her lips to the underside of his jaw, just along where the soft skin became hardened plates. "It's your birthday."

That statement seemed to puzzle him for a moment as he remained still, eyes kept closed as he bordered on asleep and awake. "Is it?"

She couldn't help from laughing quietly, her hand simultaneously trailing up to cup at the side of his head. "Yeah, yeah it is. Welcome to forty."

"As the reigning queen, are you here to give me my membership benefits?"

Shepard smiled despite herself, and nodded against his throat, then pulled back to find his mouth with hers. He willingly opened to allow her entrance, and their kissing was slow and lazy, taking the time to savor the sensation of the action that—for numerous reasons—had become increasingly rare as time passed. "If we discount for the two years I was dead we're the same age."

"Nice try, Mrs. Robinson."

"Mm—how do you know who Mrs. Robinson is?"

"Joker said it awhile back and it stuck with me long enough to do an extranet search of what he meant. From an old Earth vid. A classic, it said, about an older woman seducing a younger man." He gave an exaggerated sigh. "Pretty accurate."

In reply, Shepard just slapped an open palm to his shoulder, which offered no pain other than to jostle them both slightly more awake than either had been a moment earlier. "Is that what you always saw for yourself, then? Settling down with an older woman?" There was some phrase, about if you couldn't beat them, then you had to join in.

"Well in a few years I'll take a new, younger wife," he said with the kind of stoic calm he usually held. "I want to experience both ends of the spectrum."

"I at least hope she's pretty."

"Oh she will be. And a better shot, too. Definitely would beat me in a bottle shooting match."

Shepard nearly snorted at that memory. "We've been over this: I missed on _purpose._"

"You can say it all you want, but I still don't believe it."

The words reignited her earlier intentions, fingers rising to drag the length of his fringe as it ran parallel over the pillow they shared. "You remember what you said to console me?"

"Remind me," he purred, tone of voice changing with every brush of her skin to his.

"You said," Shepard paused, rising up onto one elbow to prop up and support herself, moving in to kiss at his brow. "That I was good at other things."

"I did, didn't I?"

"And that's what I'm trying to do, if you'd open your damn eyes sometime before the kids get up."

His mandibles widened, and Shepard was almost sure he was going to keep his eyes clenched shut out of stubbornness that was more her than him, but she knew him well enough to know he could never resist a come on like that. Not from her, and especially not with how sporadic moments alone had gotten as of late. Finding time to join together was hard but not impossible with one daughter, it had even been _somewhat_ manageable with just Alice and Hannah. But three children… three had pushed and crossed that limit.

She didn't miss his blue eyes opening, nor the way they swept from her face on down her neck and to her bare chest devoid of the shirt she'd worn to bed and promptly removed in the minute before trying to ease him awake. His eyes met hers again when he was done appreciating the view, one that he hadn't always seen the allure of—what with the lack of evolutionary interest ingrained into him in seeing breasts as a sign of fertility—but at some point in the last decade had found enough fondness in for the sight of her undressed to leave arousal tickling his groin.

"Like I said, happy birthday."

Sleep was no longer the priority after that, and it was hardly a second before his arm around her pulled her in even closer as their mouths met once more, hard and overeager. There was an urgency to them, not the kind of urgency that came with knowing they only had mere minutes to reach orgasm before a child or other responsibility came calling, but the urgency that if he wasn't absolutely, completely inside of her in the next moment, he and she would both burst from the tension that coiled through their bodies.

Garrus shifted, moving her away from the edge of the bed and more towards the middle or at the very least, his side of it, while he rose on knees and hands over her. Shepard, for her part, kept her arms looped loosely around his neck to force the closeness of their heads and chests, and he wasn't one to complain, especially not as her tongue found its place among his. Below him, he didn't even have time to tug down at her panties—and it was much to his dismay that she hadn't thought to remove them earlier along with her shirt. Rather, he just pushed at his own sleepwear, moving it down enough to free himself from the restricting fabric, while his talon pushed the cloth of her underwear aside.

"Door's locked," Shepard said as means of encouragement, and let her head hit the pillow, giving enough distance between them so that her eyes could find his.

His approving response was in pushing her leg—the good one, always the good one—up and back so it ran against his chest, and subsequently then pressing into her entrance, shallow at first, testing the waters, feeling her wet.

Shepard moaned, left unsatisfied by the lack of forward movement, literal and figurative. "Been thinking about this all night."

The words were simple, hardly anything in fact, but they were enough. He was sheathed by her in the next breath, and Spirits it had been weeks now since the last time they'd been together like this. It hadn't lasted long and Shepard hadn't come, not with him still inside her. His fingers had done the trick for her afterward, while Hannah was away for the morning at pre-school, Caius slept, and they heard the soon-to-be cries of Alice in their omni-tools as they desperately fought to both leave sated before real life came calling back. This would be a most welcomed morning, despite the sleep deprivation behind their eyes.

"Harder," she begged from beneath him, pushing back with as much as she had and easily could from her position.

On his end, Garrus had no problem in doing as directed, and the pants of breath—how they got shorter, came in faster, and were louder—told him she was close already. That was his girl. He reached between them and pressed a pad of his finger with filed down talon against the bundle of nerves, finding it with well-rehearsed grace. He rolled around it, avoiding the direct stimulation that was often too much for her, even this late in the game, and soon enough Shepard was reaching that zenith, crying out without abandon into the silence of their house. Garrus came following her right after.

In the post-coital moments, their roles reversed as he now was the one to bury his face into her neck, licking and nipping at the salty skin of her throat, Garrus was content to lay motionless partially atop her. He could feel her body winding down, relaxing into a more natural breathing pattern as the effects of the coupling ran their course, and like usual, Shepard's fingers found residence at the notches of the plates that composed his back, following along the roadwork of curves and distinctive lines that increased with age.

"What are you thinking about?"

"You," she confessed. "The last ten years."

He was sure that was as much as she was going to share, could even sense the way her lips parted to speak and then closed after reconsidering, but even after all that time, she surprised him.

"You've been happy, right?"

A long while ago, he would have heard unsureness in her voice, pleading for the answer she needed to keep her from wavering, to remind her that she shouldn't have let him go, shouldn't have _forced_ him to go. But now, Garrus knew, of all things, Shepard just wanted to talk.

For a fleeting second, he considered making a joke, but held it back. "I can't think of anything that would make this better."

"Not even a Turian-Human?"

That had once been a topic they'd exhausted enough for the next century. _If Mordin was alive,_ she'd said on one of their worst nights, a few days after her third miscarriage. _If he was alive, he would find a way._ Whether that crazy Salarian could have indeed constructed a way for their DNA to produce viable offspring, Garrus would never know, but it wouldn't have done anything for Shepard or him to hopelessly wish for it, especially not so soon after the repeated loss of what was just to be a solely human child.

The first time, they'd accepted it. It was something that happened to most women, even ones that hadn't died and been rebuilt and been to hell and back a hundred times. The second time it was coincidence, a painful coincidence. But that third time—none of the pregnancies ever lasting more than a few weeks, just long enough for them to know and to hope and to think about planning and then to lose it just as quick—had done its job in destroying Shepard and him in the process. Hannah, she had been the fourth, created from a donor's sperm and one of those eggs Miranda had harvested for stem cells in the initial reconstruction of Shepard but had never needed to use. And though both of them hated the word, they both considered Hannah a miracle.

"No," he said, leaving the memories behind. "You and I both know it'd be damned ugly."

Her laughing was a happiness to him, and not just because it was a sound that he loved, but because it meant her mind hadn't strayed to the places his had gone. She wasn't thinking about what they'd lost, just what they'd gained, however belated it all was.

"Hideous," she confirmed.

Garrus extricated himself finally, rolling over onto his back though his gaze still fell on her in the space next to him. "Probably easier to stay awake now than it is to try to get another hour," he admitted with defeat.

"I've got it." Shepard met his eyes straight on from the next pillow over. "If you can't sleep in on your birthday, then when can you?"

No part of him would wish for a take-back on the early morning wake up Shepard had just given him, but the lure of another few hours of sleep was far too much for even him to resist. So much for all that long cultivated self control, he could practically feel his eyelids closing already. Half-heartedly, he questioned her. "Positive?"

Shepard touched his mandible in quiet reassurance. "That's an order, Officer Vakarian."

"Haven't heard that in awhile," he yawned.

"You like it when I break out the Commander voice."

"And you like it when I let you call me Archangel."

She nuzzled her cheek to his. "Can't help it. Nothing gets a girl going more than a vigilante working in her honor."

He felt the weight of the bed shift as she began to move away, the heat radiating off her body dissipating as she left him behind. "Making a note."

Across the room, Shepard could tell the exact moment he gave into that unconsciousness once again. His muscles went slack, body at ease against the pillows and sheets. Apex predator, her ass. That Turian loved sleep even more than she did lately.

Despite the early hour, her morning routine started just the same as it always did—save for the few days every so often when the Council called her back to Eden Prime—by climbing into the shower of the private bath off the bedroom she and Garrus shared. She rinsed the night and remaining vestiges of sleep from her body, soap cutting through the sweat accumulated in the creases of her body and the fluids from between her thighs from their previous escapades. After the shower came the brushing of teeth, squeezing of excess moisture from her hair, and patting down her body until it was just dry enough to begin pulling clothes on.

Somewhere deep in the back of her closet there were a few old Alliance uniforms left hanging, pressed like they were just patiently waiting to be worn again, even if Shepard knew better than to think they would even fit her anymore. She kept in shape, had made it a priority, but she wasn't fool enough to think her body hadn't found some manner of change to what it had once had been.

Every so often she'd get a glimpse of the navy fabric and gold detailing on her dress blues, or the much more functional pieces of her duty uniform, and it would leave Shepard with longing nostalgia for the life she had lived. Then, with the same swiftness, the moment would pass, and just as glad she was that she was no longer forced into the heavy hardsuits, Shepard was all too happy not to have to wear the high and stiff collared Alliance uniforms. It had been a strange transition at first, back to life as a civilian of sorts. The last time she'd ever truly known that, she'd been just a girl, not even an adult under the eyes of the law, and she still hadn't truly adjusted to the freedom of choosing what to wear on a daily basis when there wasn't a rulebook dictating it to her.

The house was quiet, but that was the only nod to a picture of perfection it offered. The living room was a mess, children's belongings even spilling out into the hallway like they were brought in with the rising tide. The kitchen counters were scattered with datapads that she'd asked Garrus to put away days ago, leftover crumbs of her children's dinners, and all the plastic and metal accoutrements the children in question needed in order to eat.

For most of her time, Shepard had lived the kind of life where most of her worldly possessions fit into a single duffel bag. It had been easy and simple, and in some cases, zen. Give her a few changes of clothes, maybe a spare pair of boots, a book, a few pictures, and the latest weapon du jour, and she was content and at home wherever she went. With children, though, that would never be the case again. They required and wanted for too much to ever fit into one single bag.

On that thought, Shepard sought to rectify the clutter that the house had descended into, and was at it into well past dawn, when the first call came in on her omni-tool. Caius. He was always the first.

She'd protested all the extra space when they'd first moved in, complaining that they'd never fill it all with any use. The house wasn't obscenely large, she suspected it had originally been built as something of a holiday home in the previous century for someone with far too much wealth than they knew what to do with, but it was definitely roomy, especially for a human and a Turian who had been used to sharing quarters. They'd built the office and guest room to occupy themselves, and yet still most of the house had remained vacant.

Hannah had gotten her room upon birth, and when Garrus had looked to Shepard with their sleeping daughter in his arms and confessed that he longed for one more child, Shepard had already parceled off a spare bedroom for the baby that was only yet a thought. Alice had come and filled that room and she and Garrus had discussed turning the last bedroom into a library or perhaps a playroom to keep the mess of blocks and figurines and plastic recreations of pieces of food and cookware out of their living room, but Caius had found them first. And now, five months after Shepard had turned up with the Turian infant like it was a lost puppy, the house, the home, their _life_ was complete.

Flicking on the light switch, she covered the small opening at the mouthpiece of the bottle of warm liquid with her finger, continuing to shake the viscous mixture up as she had done on the journey from the kitchen. Caius was waiting for her, standing on thin and tiny legs while claws curled around the bars of the crib, his face pushed up against the gaps between them. There wasn't a huge difference between a human and Turian crib as far as functionality went, so they'd opted for the human version those months ago. Though Shepard had made sure to arrive on Earth with the necessities that Caius would need to get them through a few days, she hadn't, as it turned out, brought every item of note with her. Caius had spent his first night in the smaller bassinet each of their daughters had used during their initial few months, but on his second day as a father to three, Garrus had disappeared for an hour, returning home with a human crib of suitable size for the Turian baby.

Caius called for his mother with cheeps and pleasant cries, the excitement thrumming through him so rapidly he lost his delicate footing and fell back onto the mattress, landing on his bottom.

"Good morning, Cai," she cooed, lowering the side down as he reached for her with the kind of desperate attention he usually called for. Shepard was quick, sensing the neediness in his tone, and gathered him in her arm. He grasped at her anxiously, fingers tugging on strands of hair and fabric all the same. It wasn't that he didn't have control of what he was aiming for in grasping, no, it was quite the opposite. Unlike human children who took quite a deal of time to develop decent motor coordination, Turians came with much more of it from birth, as they did many other things. What it was, was just that Caius seemed to never know which part of his mother he wanted first and what would yield the strongest grip onto her, so he became a bevy of eagerness, lost in the all-consuming thrill of a parent nearby. Garrus had promised it was a phase that would soon pass, but even as he yanked rather painfully at bits of her hair, she wasn't sure she ever wanted to lose it.

Prying him from her just long enough to change his diaper was another feat entirely, and Caius let out a piercing cry as she laid him out and set the bottle aside. As means of a distraction, Shepard offered him a rubbery set of rings they'd had to order specially from off-world after he'd torn into some of the standard human teething rings one too many times and even nearly choked on a piece he'd bitten free. While Caius had been born with a full set of small teeth and didn't have to endure the ache that her daughters did when theirs came in, the need to gnaw was ever present in him like the rest of his species in that age group. So when the brightly colored set of chewing rings was offered, Caius gladly accepted, letting the loss of his mother go to instead work at trying to shred the near indestructible toy.

Garrus had gotten years to prepare for the idea of being father to a human daughter. Shepard had gotten what—a few minutes?—to adjust to the feel of the boy in her arms and to know that somehow, however it may have been possible, that he was meant to be with them. It hadn't left for a lot of time to read through the educational material that most new parents would often study before the birth of their child, and hell, Shepard hadn't even so much as seen a Turian movie that dealt with the realities of raising one of theirs. Unlike humans' fascination with the subject, they seemed to have no market for romantic comedies involving two people thrown together to raise a child in whatever comical setting.

Shepard had brushed all those worries aside, however. She'd had some experience with a Turian infant, hadn't she? As someone who took to most things with minimal instruction, she'd somehow managed to convince herself that the fragment of time she'd spent with Necalli so long ago would translate over into complete professionalism with the new child that was bestowed upon her. But in the words of Garrus: _Spirits_, she had been so wrong.

It wasn't just that he didn't drink milk since Turians had no mammary glands to speak of, or that when it came to eating, that kid put away more food than she was sure even Hannah did. It wasn't that while human children grew a great deal in their first year, Turian ones grew even _faster_, or that developmentally, Turian young were far more advanced than their human equals, something they would have to be in the kind of environment they'd evolved in for millions of years.

It was everything else: like how he didn't suck on her finger or call for a pacifier to soothe himself; how he didn't really jabber like Alice did, but at this age had more specific cries and sounds with certain meanings while he was still learning speech, which had been a concern of theirs, that being surrounded by voices he'd have to know through a translator, it would stunt his growth on that front; and like how for Turians, diapers were more a precaution than a necessity after the first few days since the kind of control they had in regard to that bodily function—barring illness and emergencies—put even her four year old to shame, although the alternative to going to the bathroom in a diaper when one pleased had its own downsides.

Sensing the opening of the once tightly fastened Turian-designed diaper, Caius instinctively released what waste he'd been holding, and Shepard was prepared, keeping the material closed to prevent any incidents. Months earlier she'd been sure she would never, not ever, get used to that difference between her children, and far too many times had she forgotten and ended up with a gag reflex inducing amount of Turian infant urine and fecal matter staining her clothes. She was embarrassed to admit how slow she'd been on the uptake of that important fact, but five months out and she had become proficient enough to not need a change of clothes every few hours for both her and her son.

Cleaned and redressed, she had the increasingly heavy weight of Caius cradled in one arm, offering the bottle to him. He traded the chew-toy for the rigid mouthpiece that fit between his plates, suckling in his own way at the heated dextro shake, a thick mixture of proteins and fats that he found particularly tasty, or at the very least, his morning hunger did. What he ate through the rest of the day wouldn't be quite so concentrated in calories, instead preferring to graze nearly constantly on small bits of shredded meats and processed plant matter paste, but it would be the pick-me-up of energy he needed to function properly without resorting to starvation-induced tantrums, and that would also allow him to continue to grow at the rate necessary. He had been small from birth, and Shepard would be damned if she'd give him any reason to stay far behind.

From in his chest, Shepard could not only hear, but feel the vibration of his purring as he sucked down the vital nutrition. It was a happy sound, not just for him, but for her as well. Despite all the things she and Garrus were sure they had been doing right by him during their first few weeks together as a family, Caius had fought them nearly every step of the way to finding the kind of balance and harmony that was necessary between them. There had been a lot of tears—from Alice, from Hannah, even a few from Shepard—and distraught cries from him—even a few frustrated ones from Garrus—during that time. For all the comfort she and Garrus could sometimes offer the little boy, he had just as often turned around and refused them, a problem which had a few origins, not least of which was the fact that he had failed to bond to his birth mother back on Eden Prime.

And then one day, the tides had simply turned seemingly overnight. For what reason they didn't know, Caius had looked to her with something else in his eyes. He'd looked to them not like a child in deep distress seeking out the bare minimums of comfort where he could get it, but like a son to his parents, and like he knew, without question, that they were the pillars of safety and protection. Garrus became Dad and Shepard became _Mom._ Delayed imprinting, the doctor had formally said it was, something which usually happened in those that didn't develop it upon birth. What would have happened to him if he had been on Palaven, she wondered, with a temporary family or just nothing concrete at all? What would it have been like for him to find some biological calm in something fleeting and have it ripped away?

She drew him in a little closer to her chest as she thought over the past, leaned in, and kissed the edge of his forehead plate. When she pulled back, he already had his tiny claw tugging at a handful of her hair to keep her from going far, eyes locked on her face, following her closely. That, much to Shepard's happiness, was something that extended beyond the boundaries of species. Both Turian and Humans alike found serenity in tracking the movements of their mother's and father's faces when held so close.

"You're a good one," she said as the bottle drained down to empty and he used his claws to push it away from himself, forcing her pressure on where she held it steady to ease up. It was abandoned on the top of a nearby dresser before they vacated the room—she'd have to remember to come back for it later—and headed directly into the next one beside it. The pattern of her behavior was similar, turning on the light by the door and then crossing to the crib on the opposite wall, but Alice wasn't waiting for her like Caius had been. Give her another half hour and the little girl might have been up against the bars, testing the strength of her legs—ones not quite as strong as her brother's—and calling for her mother with a mix of unintelligible vowels, consonants, and even the occasional repetition of the 'Ma' and 'Da' sounds she had learned to identify with her parents awhile back.

As it was, Alice was still asleep but just barely, the poor little thing with her limbs sprawled out all over like she was desperately trying to cool off from the day's already stuffy temperatures. Shepard lowered the side down and rubbed a palm over her daughter's clothed stomach, slow and unobtrusive, trying to ease her into morning as gently as possible. Her head turned and fists clenched in a good sign, and there was even the short and high-pitched exhale as one of her hands pressed at her face. The sound was enough to call Caius' attention away from his mother, his body leaning with caution to get a view of his sister. He released a happy coo and shifted his weight further, and Shepard knew what he was asking for so she obeyed, laying him down beside Alice.

He'd been crawling for awhile now and shimmied up in the space beside her on his boney knees, lowering his head down to nudge at her shoulder and then her cheek. With practiced balance, he raised one hand to pull at her short sleeve, making those pleading, cheeping sounds the entire time, and then went in for the kill, tugging at Alice's growing hair.

Shepard had expected it, and before he'd pulled with the kind of strength he used on her own scalp, she caught his three-fingered hand—with talons they'd filed down for his own and her other children's safety—and held it steady. "Careful, Caius," she admonished, and he peered up at her with big eyes, mandibles held in tightly to his jaw. It was a sign, she'd learned by now, that meant he knew when he had done something wrong, or at least that he understood her tone.

Alice didn't last in her slumber much more after that, and as her eyes blinked open and she greeted the day, her brother made more frequent and louder sounds as he recognized her entrance to the waking world. It took her a few minutes to lose that haziness, and Alice first looked to the face of her mother hovering over her crib and then to the more insistent prodding from Caius. They both exchanged their own species' versions of squeals of joy.

_The twins_, Garrus sometimes called them, seemed to have their own way of communicating across the barrier of genetics, and moments like this only confirmed their father's words. They were five months apart, give or take a week, but he'd caught up to her in most ways, and surpassed her in others. Shepard knew it wouldn't be long before he left Alice behind in the dust, but she suspected the bond they shared as two young children reared together wouldn't ever really disappear. They couldn't have been more different, and yet, after only an afternoon of watching the two of them interacting together, there was no question to Shepard that they shared something she, nor anyone else, would ever really understand.

"I don't know what I did to get you both in a good mood on the same day," she said, "but I'll take it."

Through repetition, Alice and Caius had learned that her fondness for putting her own hands into her mouth didn't exactly translate well over to her brother. She'd offered them, all five fingers soft and wiggling to the plates of his mouth, and after enough time spent learning from her behavior, Caius had finally accepted them one day. It had seemed like a good idea, at least to the children, or that was until his teeth, far sharper than hers, had come into contact with her skin and left her wailing. He hadn't actually pierced her skin, just left little indentations that would have soon drawn blood had he applied an ounce more of pressure, but her tears had induced his, and Shepard wouldn't forget the way Hannah had looked over from her things and promptly declared both of her siblings to be rather _stupid._ It was an insult she still hurled every now and then when Caius and Alice forgot the lessons they'd gained and little fingers crept dangerously close to a predator's mouth.

Which was where they were going at the moment, and Shepard had enough time to intervene yet again, saving her daughter from a foolish mistake. Pulling Alice into her arms elicited a whine out of the eleven month old, and one to shortly follow from the boy with the concern of being left behind, but Shepard simply gathered him up as well, both her arms full of wriggling, squirming children who were exercising their vocal chords as loud as their lungs would allow.

The trip from bedrooms to living room was made in haste out of preservation of her eldest daughter's sleep, since while Alice may have been more often than not alright with the idea of either of her parents waking her before her body allowed for it, Hannah was a whole different experience entirely. The few days a week that Hannah went to pre-school in the morning was a nightmare with the kind of grumpiness she delved into, and Shepard often swore that when she saw her daughter after the morning of socializing with other children her age, Hannah sometimes still held a stubborn grudge for being torn out of her bed sooner than she'd intended. The living room, Shepard prayed, would be far enough away to leave her daughter undisturbed.

Mother, daughter, and son settled in on far side of the couch, the only square footage of the piece of furniture that didn't come with the uncomfortable risk of sitting down upon pieces of toy cutlery. Before easing in Alice for her morning feed, Shepard set Caius on the living room carpet, gifting the boy his temporary freedom within the confines of the living quarters. A toy he'd abandoned the night before called to him and he crawled the few feet to it, seizing the item in his grasp and chirping at it, in apparent belief that the inanimate object deserved a conversation of sorts. Alice's attention was drawn to what was going on beyond them, and she fidgeted, struggling to join her brother. That was, until she looked back to her mother, sliding the tank top strap down her arm just enough to bare a milk swollen breast. All focus on anything else died away once that instinct came calling, and Alice, barely needing her mother's help, turned to the breast for that filling first meal of the day that Caius had already downed.

Her daughter had already begun to self-wean in some ways, like how come the afternoon she'd be far too distracted to want to nurse, content to take a bottle or pieces of cereal with her as she played. When it came to morning and night, however, Alice enjoyed the calm and nourishment she got directly from the source. Shepard, though barely admitting it to herself, would be saddened the day her daughter finally moved on completely. The routine of it all: the feeding and pumping, cuddling and suckling, it tired her out more days than it didn't, but there was something she couldn't describe about how it felt to have Garrus bring their daughter to bed in the early mornings and to let her nurse. He always lingered for a minute, no matter how much he had to do, rubbing a finger over Alice's cheek—or Hannah's as it had once been—as he watched their child find supreme comfort between both her parents. Shepard would miss it dearly.

On the floor, Caius' fondness for the toy ran out, and on his way to another item of interest, he ventured a glance back towards his mother. He was always doing that, more so than she saw from Alice, as though he was constantly checking for her presence and proximity out of fear of her abandonment. What she was doing caught his eye and he redirected his course in their direction, talons digging into the fabric of the couch as he pulled himself into a standing position, merely watching his rival with the mother they shared.

He made a familiar sound, one that was vaguely like a cross between one of her daughter's babbles and that of an owl's hoot, but in flanging vocals. It was the sound Caius had attributed to Shepard at some point, while the one he fell into when he called for his father was deeper, sharper, shorter.

"You want to come up?"

The sound repeated, mandibles flexing in time as he impatiently bounced on thin legs made of pure corded muscle.

"Going to have to talk someday," she said, and just stretched a hand towards him, letting her palm brush over his forehead and the lengths of his fringe that although had grown more defined, still didn't stretch past his skull. He leaned in to her touch with quiet affection. "It's Dad's birthday, did you know that?"

His head cocked slightly to the side and made the lower sound of the call for his father while taking a glance back around the room, almost as if he was looking for the man in question.

"And then it'll be Alice's," she said with a gentle squeezing of her daughter's toes. Alice kicked her feet to force her mother off and Shepard centered her study on the small Turian boy instead. "Still got a ways to go for you, baby. You'll be huge by then."

Caius anxiously pawed at his mother's legs, reaching for the hem of her shorts to aid in the attempt at pulling the rest of his body weight up on the couch. Shepard interceded and helped him one-handedly, the other arm still curled around Alice although she was partially supported by the side of the couch and pillow tucked between.

He had become something of an expert climber, that one, and Shepard knew it was only a matter of time before Caius was successfully scaling the walls of his crib and liberating himself from its prison on a nightly basis. There would be a whole new world of baby-proofing come that day, but for now, she let him do as he pleased, hand at his backside to support some of his strain. Home was found in her lap, creating space for himself despite Alice's large body as he rested his head against the soft cushion of Shepard's other, and still partially covered, breast. He acted in imitation of his sister, snuggling into his mother, even turning mouth and mandibles in some misguided expectation that she would let him nurse as well, but he mostly gave in and just enjoyed the warmth.

The first time he'd done that had broken her heart, to see her son so desperately long for the bond he saw the other child had, and one that unfortunately couldn't be shared. On occasion he enjoyed his bottle from the same position while his sister ate, and although it left her arms tired to support them both so close for an extended time, the soft hums of pleasure out of deep in his chest made the work easily endured.

"I'd let you if you could," she sighed and Caius released a similar deep exhale, his born out of comfort. His eyes fluttered shut, every few seconds reopening with his resilience momentarily renewed, but sure enough giving in the next moment again, until altogether he fell back into a light sleep, nestled in her care. Alice wore a drowsy expression as her suckling slowed down, and Shepard rested her head against the back of the couch to find her own measure of relief.

_Only a second_, she said. _Just going to rest my eyes. Just five seconds and I'll be fine_.

..

An hour later, Garrus scrubbed the sleep from his face as he passed the living room, spying the rest of the home's occupants out of the corner of his eye. There was Shepard with the two youngest in her arms, head lolled in such a way she was surely to wake with a crick in her neck, while Hannah, still in her pajamas, was playing in silence at her mother's feet. She looked up to her father, and with a smile, pressed her fingers to her mouth in a butchered expression of _quiet._

He heeded her warning, but being the risk taker that he was, Garrus couldn't help himself from meandering on over to the tangled mess of bodies on the couch. To Shepard's forehead he first touched his own, then followed the action up by repeating it to Alice's and even Caius'. When he turned around, Hannah was on her bare feet, waiting. He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers too, and she returned the tender collision.

"Breakfast?" Garrus whispered.

"Breakfast," she agreed and sought out his hand, leading the way to the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

At the opposite end of the day, when the sun was setting and two plates of what remained of dextro and levo based cakes were in the fridge—because Spirits forbid Hannah only get to watch her father enjoy his own cake on his birthday and not partake—the house was brimming with energy.

Hannah had been the first to shower, her body spiraling towards a sugar-induced coma after the globs of sweet frosting had been fed into her mouth with both hands, finger tips and palms stained unnatural—at least for _Human_ skin—colors from the food dye of the decorations. And now in the tub, as Shepard sat on her knees, body hunched over the side of the bath, she was doing her best at scrubbing identical discolorations from her eleven moth old's hands and cheeks. Alice was giggling and splashing, making the process as difficult as possible, and despite the amount of soapy water sopping her clothing, Shepard could only smile. It had been a happy day, a good one for all of them, and she wasn't going to let a little water on the walls and bathroom floor ruin it.

"Garrus!" She called from the children's bathroom.

"Yeah?"

"Got one for you!"

"Already?" His voice was clearer as he headed down the hallway and stood in the doorway, grabbing one of the small, child-sized towels on the cabinet top. "You worked fast tonight, Mom."

"Ma-ma-ma," Alice repeated endlessly as she pried her hand away from her mother and smacked open palms into the water which had the effect of creating splashes of maximum reach, spreading so far that even a few droplets managed to hit her father as he approached, the towel spread out between his arms.

From the other end of the tub, Caius cooed his own call for his mother, the sounds intertwining in echo of one another as he was otherwise preoccupied with filling a small cup with water and then dumping it out into the bath. It was mindless, but each time pulled a giggle out of him as the water poured back into the tub.

"Ready, Trouble?" Her father asked from overhead.

Alice looked up to him, head shaking. "No, no, no, no!"

"Yes, yes," Shepard said in competition.

Just as quickly, she denied her mother, most of her nude upper body shaking simultaneously with the motion of her head. "No!"

"She seems pretty firm in it," Garrus said, no lack of amusement in his vocals as he took a seat on the closed top of the nearby toilet.

"She's not even one—"

"And it's my birthday, so, extra bath time it is."

Shepard turned, even squinted her eyes at him, cheeks and forehead speckled in water droplets and the wisps of hair around her face sodden and damp from their children's rambunctious playing. Garrus just smiled, smug and defiant.

"Fine. Alice, baby, why don't you show your Daddy where your nose is?"

She had still been lost in the all consuming thought of delivering her stubborn no's, but the question posed to her left her otherwise distracted. A nimble pointer finger, the other digits only partially folded back, met with her nose. It took a few seconds of mastering hand eye-coordination to get it exactly right, but the fact that she managed it was what was important. Her going cross eyed for a second to stare at her finger so close to her face was just a laugh-worthy bonus.

"Where's your belly button?"

Her hand smacked at her rotund middle.

"Does Caius have a belly button?"

She looked from her mother and father over to her brother who had lifted his head at the mention of his name. Alice considered the question, one that her parents had fed to her time and time again, and then decided on her answer, letting her head swing from side to side.

"That's right. But do you know what he has that you don't? Mandibles. Do you know where Caius' mandibles are?"

Her fingers swiped animatedly at her own jaw, jabbering on the M consonant as though she was calling for her mother, but really sounding out the similar sound in the word her mother had dictated to her.

"Where are _his_ mandibles, Alice?" Garrus asked, repeating the question.

A hand stretched over, crossing the distance, and she impolitely swatted at her brother's chin and the small appendages affixed there. Caius leveled a disapproving glare at her to punish her for the lack of personal space neither usually observed.

"Where's your hair?"

Alice was growing impatient with the line of questioning, and her behavior showed for it. Instead of grasping at her thin hair, she reached for her mother's dangling strands and gave a none-too gentle tug.

"No," Shepard said through gritted teeth, pulling her daughter's hands free. "Where's _your_ hair? Where's Alice's hair?"

She preferred to ignore her mother after that, and just when the question was nearly lost, Caius was the one rubbing his hand against his sister's scalp in indication of the item his parents were looking for. To them, he glanced, seeking recognition and reassurance.

"This is why you're my favorite," Shepard said, and leaned over the edge of the tub far enough to kiss her son's facial plates. They shifted in a pleased expression, and from the back of his throat did he release that gleeful, breathy purring as he hit his hands excitedly into the water's surface.

"I see how it is—" Garrus started, but stopped, as the home was filled with the ringing from one of their incoming comm lines.

"Private," Shepard said as she identified the particular tone, and rolled her shoulder back in the direction of the open doorway. "Probably Wrex. Was having another this week, wasn't he?"

He moved to stand, but his wife caught his wrist before he could go too far, looking pointedly back at their daughter who was playing on her own, unaware.

Before the girl could protest, Garrus had her out of the water and into the chilly air, bundling her up in the towel. He reacted with speed, and Alice hadn't even the time to let out a single cry or a fervent _no_ as they were out the door in order to catch the ringing before it was lost.

"Alone at last," Shepard said with a smile to her son. Caius looked to the empty space beside him and then back to his mother, and chirped his mother's call. Running her hands through the water and finding the temperature dropping, she turned the faucet on, letting hot water flow in and heat it up a few degrees. Just as he preferred the air to be warmer, he was happiest in temperatures of water that would have left Alice nearly roasted, the stinging heat a discomfort to her delicate skin. So as it usually was, Shepard kept Caius in the bath a little longer than his sister to let him bask for a few minutes and feel simply _Turian _in an otherwise mostly Human household.

He laid down along the length of her forearm, head resting in the crook of her elbow, and Shepard assumed their usual motions, supporting him on his back as he stretched in the hot water and got as close to that weightless floating as he could. His eyes shut, and Shepard's other hand worked, taking a handful of liquid Turian soap.

Like she'd worked between her daughter's toes, Shepard ran soapy fingers between his much sharper ones, working up over the shallow point at the sides of his lower legs where the hint of his spurs were. In time, like the rest of him, they would grow and lengthen, turning him from the young child that he was and into the fierce, grown Turian full of rough and sharp edges.

She turned him over so his front was pressed to her arm, little legs and arms curled about her limb like she was a log and he was holding on for his life. He knew what was coming, and Shepard took the nearby soapy wash cloth and began to scrub at the thicker hider of his back and carapace, even the swell of his cowl, hoping to shed some of the dead layers of cells on the thickest parts of him. Without such attention, his rapidly growing plates would split and flake and be prone to discomfort, so with the assistance of the hot water softening his hide, Shepard made sure to take care of him, sloughing off what was no longer needed.

She was in the middle of rinsing away the old, Caius patiently quiet as he endured the treatment, when she sensed Garrus back in the entrance.

"What'd they name it? Boy or girl?"

"Shepard… it wasn't Wrex," he said, a nervous hesitance to him.

Letting the water from the tub, she stood with Caius' naked body curled to her chest, then reached for the nearby towel to wrap him similarly to how Alice was, still in her father's arms. Her brows furrowed as she studied her husband's expression. It made her tense.

"Then who was it?"

His talons gripped around the doorframe to steady himself. "Liara. Something came across the broker's network. The Primarch's ship entered the Sol system an hour ago. My father—" He choked, "he's on Earth. And on his way over."

Shepard blanched, her cheeks, pink from the steam of the water, nearly losing all their coloring at the implication of what had been said.

Five months they'd kept all of this mostly to themselves. Sure, there were some people who knew. Liara, Wrex, Kaidan, Tali, even Garrus' sister, all the usual faces and names, most of which had even been down to visit the Shepard-Vakarians with their Turian addition. And while it had been quite a struggle to find a doctor on Earth that knew a damn thing about Turians, they had even managed that without resorting to bringing Caius out to Eden Prime, or worse—Palaven. They didn't keep him hidden away even if that was something of the custom back on the Turian homeworld, parents fearing their children to be too delicate and weak to be seen out in public before their first complete year, but there also wasn't about to be holiday cards sent out any time soon that announced the latest family member either.

There were those who would be perturbed by what they'd done, what _she'd_ done, and for as long as they could avoid creating strain—they would.

This had, of course, meant keeping the news of the latest grandchild from Primarch Vakarian. He had come a long way in the last year, had been to see Alice when she was born as he had promised back on Eden Prime. Hannah, at her last birthday, had even received a gift from her grandfather, and knew him by face through the vid-comms he sometimes used to communicate to the home. But telling the Primarch that Shepard—his daughter-in-law for all intents and purposes—had willfully defied some of the laws of the planet he represented, well, it was something she had never really figured out how to do.

Her chest clenched with the worry it brought. Why now? Could she really make herself believe he was coming as a surprise for his son's birthday, a celebration his species didn't even acknowledge past their fifteenth year? Was it a coincidence? _Why_ Earth? The last and _only_ time he'd been on their planet had been for Alice's birth, why would he suddenly find the time to visit them now—and without warning? The arms around Caius squeezed a little tighter and Caius protested with pleading cries, sensing the terse bout of anxiety spreading through his mother and the room.

"We don't know why he's here," Garrus carefully said, hoping to placate her. "Maybe it really is just a visit." There was something in his eyes though, that told Shepard he didn't really believe his words either.

"If he—if he _thinks_," she began, one hand cutting through the air, "that he's taking our son from us—"

Garrus caught her arm, and settled her as he said her given name. "Don't jump ahead of yourself."

Inwardly, they both knew that if she had an ounce of calm to her right now, Garrus would have been the one making her statements. His relationship with his father had improved over the year as well, though it didn't take much to pick it up from where it had been—since it was practically nonexistent after the elder Vakarian hadn't shown to ever meet his first granddaughter—but that didn't mean Garrus believed any more in his father's willingness to stand up for his son and for his family over the whole of Palaven. Maybe that was asking too much of the man, but had she and Garrus been put into such a position, there was no question about what side they would have chosen. Everything else be damned, the life they'd built together came first. But for now, Garrus would play the role she needed him to: he would be strong.

She felt the tight assuredness of his grip around her wrist. "When?"

"Half hour… at most."

* * *

The estimate of thirty minutes had been generous, and although it wasn't ideal, it was perhaps a blessing to Shepard. Half an hour didn't provide much time for wallowing and self-pity. It hadn't been much more than half that time when the lights of a skycar flickered against the front windows of the home, a knock and ringing of the entrance bell following. The house was still the mess it was that morning, the children were hardly dressed in their night things, the tub still waiting to be rinsed of the soap scum from the earlier bath, and Shepard, she hardly considered herself presentable. It wasn't that she suddenly had the urge to please others, that had never really been her thing—save for maybe Garrus—but that suddenly she felt like a microscope was about to be held over their lives, judged to be unfit not just for being parents of mixed-species, but because of very real, tangible things, like a home that was currently knee-deep in clutter, left her out of her element. Uneasy.

"Promise me," she said, grasping Garrus by the fabric over his cowl, desperation in her voice, in the very way she held herself—the kind of desperation she hadn't shown in _years. _"You'll stand by me—by us."

Tears shone in her eyes, thick and threatening to spill, and Garrus knew when he looked back to her after letting his father in, they'd be gone, the mask she'd worn as Commander of the Normandy back in place for the first time she needed it—_really needed it_—since Hannah was born. Sure, it had come out before, usually when she had to threaten someone or get them to fall in line. But this, what this was right now, was Shepard calling back on the woman of strength that had saved the galaxy, because it was preferential to be her than to be a woman on the brink of losing the only, and most important, thing she had left, her family.

"You don't have to ask that," he said, and drew his arm around her, pulling her flush into his chest as he nuzzled the top of her head. The day had started so well, hadn't it? Almost like old times, before children when it was just the two of them trading time asleep for time burying himself inside of her. There hadn't even been _fighting_ today, and it was a gift from his Spirits that Hannah, Caius, and Alice had found some measure of peace with one another. Not an hour before had they been eating cake—a human custom on birthdays, but one he'd let Shepard force on him nonetheless—and laughing, smiling, as Alice was covered in crumbs from nose to toes. The home still smelled sweet from the shampoo and soap of their children, the air warm and dry rather than humid… the day was perfect. Or it had been, until right now. Dread pooled inside of him.

Beyond the newly opened front door, his father waited, a few men of his security detail lingering back by the vehicle that had brought them there. The elder man waved them off, nodding, and stepped inside. He made no move to embrace his son or Alice held in his arm, but simply offered that earlier gesture: a nod of his head.

"She seems happy," the Primarch said instead of a greeting as Alice peered up at him with wide from behind her exceedingly long eyelashes. "I expected her to be bigger."

There was always an awkward factor to reunions with his father, one that usually faded as time passed, but with so much unsaid looming between them, Garrus was left floundering in such close contact to the man who had once had a part in raising him. His other hand, the one not holding his daughter, crossed his chest until he could gently and unconsciously rub at his daughter's back in a manner of reassurance. Whether it was for or him, he wasn't yet sure of.

"She's on track for a Human," he countered in defense of his daughter, who by no means was small or weak for her age, at least within the realm of her species.

"Right," his father said, "I didn't mean to imply…" But he didn't finish the words, just glanced to his son, their eyes meeting for a painful half of breath before they broke off eye contact completely.

"You should've let us know you were coming," Garrus started, trying not to let his words sound as heavy as they felt. Although he knew better than to think his father's trip could be coincidence and innocent, he would let his father have his innocence until otherwise proven guilty. Together, they moved down the hall to the living room, Shepard nowhere in sight, until reaching the sunken living room. Hannah looked up from the opposite end of the room where she was busy, bent over a toy box, digging through the pieces of mismatched items like she was looking for a particular item of buried treasure.

"I should have, it's impolite of me to show up unannounced and so late."

"Hannah, do you remember your Grandfather?" Garrus prompted his daughter, mitigating some of the direct heat as he took a seat on the sofa and his father found his place in an armchair adjacent.

She nodded. "Did you bring Daddy a birthday present?"

The Primarch exchanged a look with his son, mouth slightly agape at the suggestion. "I wasn't aware… _gifts_ were required for adults on the day their mothers did all the work."

"They're not," he quickly replied, feeling far too Human with his father's sudden presence. "But here they give them anyway sometimes, even past childhood." To his father, he knew it would sound silly. The man was always about the proper way of doing things, about efficiency and order, clinical and cold, even far worse than the majority of his race. Spending an evening pondering gift ideas for a son grown to forty years old wouldn't have ever been high on the list of things to do, let alone wasting an entire afternoon baking a dextro cake from scratch as Shepard had done, since the chance of finding one on Earth was close to nil. "Hannah made me a card," he added, and let the momentary fatherly pride wash over him instead. "Didn't you, Han?"

Before his words were even finished, Hannah had scampered off out of the room, bare feet smacking on the hardwood floors, moving like a tornado through the kitchen, or at least that was the way it sounded. She appeared half half a minute later, rushing over with crinkled paper in her fingers, presenting the object of her search to her Grandfather.

The Primarch looked at it as if he didn't know whether to stare or to accept it, but her insistence offered a clue. The drawings were crude, as well as the bits of colored paper cut with jagged edges and glued on to the outside. When opened, there was mostly writing, the letters large and uneven, but crafted with care in each line. Though he wasn't fluent in English, he knew a few of the characters and words, could make out the idea. At the bottom, in far neater handwriting—a suggestion that she'd practiced this particular word more often than the others—was her name in English. And what he didn't expect was that beneath it, her name repeated, but this time in the characters of his own language.

"That's beautiful handwriting, Hannah," he commended genuinely, and the little girl smiled, dimples forming in her cheeks. "You must work very hard. Is your father teaching you Turian?"

"We both are," Shepard said, entering from the hall.

Both of the Turians craned their necks from where they sat, Garrus stilling as he saw the emptiness of her arms. So that's how they were playing this. It wasn't as though they'd had a free moment to create a game plan, but somehow he'd assumed that parading around their son in front of his father wasn't going to be their course of action, and he was glad to see that he could still read her just as well as he always had. Nearby, his father sat up a little straighter in her presence.

"It's good to see you, Shepard—I apologize for coming so late, and without warning."

"Primarch." Things with her father-in-law had never been comfortable enough between them to exist on the side of casual, and right now, with the man a hair's breadth from being someone she considered an enemy, it wasn't time to start referring to one another by first names. "Hannah," she nodded her head towards Alice who, although calm, was beginning to fidget in Garrus' arms. "Why don't you take your sister and show her again where all the things belong in your kitchen."

Hannah, in a rare moment of grace, acted without whine or disobedience. Instead, she simply called Alice's name when Garrus set her to the floor, urging the baby on in the direction of the kitchen play set that had once belonged solely to herself.

Shepard smiled as she sat next to Garrus, and slid her arm around her partner's, hooking them together in a show of solidarity. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

The Primarch ignored the question, instead tossed a glance to the side and to where the girls played, or rather, where Hannah stood, serious as she gave instruction to her sister while simultaneously placing each of the faux fruits and vegetables into drawers, and Alice simply slobbered and chewed at anything within reach.

"They're wonderful, your daughters. And they look just like you, Shepard."

Garrus softened at the moment of tenderness from his father, despite the ulterior motives he knew had to linger underneath. For the most part, he and Shepard were doing this on their own. While they had a support network across the galaxy, they didn't have anyone nearby to rely on when it came to daily life. Sure, there were people to protect their children should anything severe have happened, but when it came to needing a breather or someone to babysit for a night out alone—he and Shepard were fairly isolated, even despite how much time they'd spent on Earth. That was his fault partially, he knew, with still so many apprehensive at the sight of a Turian, even worse a Turian raising Human offspring. No matter the cause, though, there was a sense of satisfaction in hearing someone confirm they'd done right by their children. They'd flown into parenthood blind and though they hadn't tackled teenager years yet, he and his mate were proud of their daughters, especially Hannah, grown as she was.

Shepard smiled and released Garrus' arm to let her hand travel up his back, palming the back of his neck and skull in a touch of affection. "He's been the best father I could have ever asked for."

Garrus made eye contact, his brow plates flexing down as he took in her features and he slid his hand over her thigh. It was a sentiment she always shared when they were alone, but hearing her admittance of it in front of his father made the words take on a different weight. She was proud of him, and hadn't that always been something he'd sought from her, even from the first time they'd met?

"I know he is—he's my son," Vakarian said simply, shifting forward onto the edge of his seat, "but we know I didn't come here to discuss how well you raised _them_."

Beneath his palm, Garrus could feel Shepard go absolutely still, muscles tense. She'd already been tightly wound with the fear of what was to come, but the words that acknowledged the situation had already burrowed beneath her flesh, leaving their mark.

Shepard's lips pursed, feeling the gentle pressure of Garrus' fingers at her leg. Her blood nearly began to boil, a warmth spreading through her veins and superheating her skin at the boldness Garrus' father held.

"What did you think you would do?" She said with a flare of accusation in her voice, dropping all false pretenses. Again, there was the squeeze of her thigh from Garrus, and she wasn't sure if it was done with the intention of warning her of her tone or giving her his silent reassurance, bolstering their defenses. "Just come here and tell us," a hand waved between her and Garrus, "that we have no claim to our son? That you're taking him back with you?"

"I'm—"

Before another sentence, syllable, sound, left his throat, Shepard cut him off. "And for what? For what reason?" Words nearly poured from her mouth without thought or consideration. It had once been her crew that she'd stood up for, even all of Humanity and then the rest of the galaxy. Now, though considerably less in number, she sought to protect something just as important: her _own _children, not just the ones that everyone else had, but the ones that called _her_ mother, the ones that even without their immediate presence, Shepard could still feel the significant weight of them in her arms. "For the good of Palaven? For some bullshit idea that because I'm not like you or him, it means our son can't possibly grow up knowing what it means to be Turian?"

"Shepard, that—"

And then there were tears in her eyes again, thickly wetting them over even if she had enough strength to hold them back from spilling. Like her eyes, her voice wore the strain of what she felt, the absolute and complete fear that she could lose what she held dear. When she'd faced down the Collectors, she'd been on her own, even with the friends at her side. Somewhere in the back of her mind there had been the thought of Garrus, of the night they'd shared together, and that if she made it out alive, she would very much like to spend the coming hours with him. That little seed of something had grown to be more, so much more, and when she'd gone towards that beam on Earth, she had pushed Garrus back into the Normandy despite his protestation. Suddenly, she had something real and tangible to lose. If she didn't make it out alive, she could be sure that he would, and that even after the grief of losing her, he would move on… eventually.

It was what had always made her a good soldier, a commitment to the cause and the fact that she never truly had much to lose. She was an entity unto herself, a woman that belonged to no one, someone that could and would push herself to the end, even if it meant sacrificing her own life. But that was all different now. She _did_ have Garrus, and more than that, they had Hannah and Alice and Caius. She had everything to lose, everything for someone to take away, and that left the Primarch with the upper hand.

"You'd tear him away from the only thing he's ever known for _that_?" Upon delivery of the words, she nearly broke, showing emotion where she'd never openly done so before.

Garrus whispered her name and leaned in, brushing his forehead just above her ear. Her eyes shut to take in the strength she needed from him, and when she opened them, some of that fear had faded. Just enough.

"Don't come here and tell me my daughters are great, wonderful, and then have the audacity to imply in the next breath that it doesn't translate over to our son."

Silence filled the room, save for the faraway sounds of Alice babbling to her sister in the corner of the living space, unaware to the dispute going on in the other end.

The Primarch sat, stunned, in the wake of the dressing down he'd been on the receiving end of. It was no wonder this woman had succeeded where others had failed, what with the conviction she spoke with, the sheer determination behind every forceful word.

"It doesn't matter," she began again, sitting back against the couch, calm and steady despite how rocked she was underneath. Her words were a dare. "The paperwork's in order. Has been for months."

Such open defiance made the Primarch's left mandible twitch, his eyes shifting from Shepard to Garrus. His son was a strong man, but compared to Commander Shepard, he would have been the weaker of the pair. It wasn't a thought made in slight against his son to think that, he justified, because Shepard had taken on the might of the Reapers head on. Everyone else paled in her shadow. "So I've seen," he ground out.

Just to lay the final nail in the proverbial coffin, Shepard gave her one last remark of opposition. "You can't come here and think you can strong arm a council _Spectre_."

At that, Vakarian suddenly scoffed. "And you wonder why," he addressed his son, "I didn't want to let you become a Spectre?" His eyes squinted and hand gestured vaguely in Shepard's general direction. Where he'd once been unflappable, her words riled him, set him alight. "You're of the mind that you can do anything, Shepard, that you're above the law. You've _always_ been that way."

"And maybe—" she cut in, voice raised, but stalled as she caught the sharp turn of her eldest daughter's head as Hannah took note of feud raging across the room.

"Mommy," Hannah pleaded, the fragile kind of voice she used in moments of true fear, when her childish mind was being overwhelmed by an unfamiliar situation. In her short life she'd only ever seen her parents quarrel on rare occasion, and perhaps never with the kind of discord that buzzed now.

Shepard talked with renewed calm. "Go play in your room, baby."

"Mama," she repeated, the call for her mother wavering while her sister played, oblivious. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Garrus said, speaking up, and rose from the couch to pull Hannah up into his arms. He nuzzled her forehead, even imitated the human action of kissing her cheek, and stroked her back as he carried her out and away from the unsteady volcano that had quickly erupted in the living room.

Alone and waiting for her daughter to be out of earshot, Shepard set her eyes back on the Primarch.

"Maybe if anyone would have listened to me back then, I wouldn't have had to go above the law. Maybe there'd be a few billion more people alive here with us if you and everyone else had removed the collective stick from up your asses!"

"And you forget the way _I_ stuck my neck out for Garrus with the Hierarchy when he came home—"

"Stop it!" Garrus shouted, a low growl emanating from his chest while he re-entered the room. Both Shepard and his father went silent. It wasn't a point of heated anger he usually let himself reach, in fact he couldn't even recall the last time it had peaked so high. Life with Shepard, even in their worst of times, never required that kind of temperament, not to each other. "He hasn't even said anything, Shepard. For Spirits' sake, just let him say something before you say anything else you'll regret.

Shepard remained without another interruption, but couldn't—or just didn't—look at him.

"And Dad—" He sighed, finally finishing his journey back to them and sitting where he previously had, although he was sure to give Shepard the inch of space she was probably wanting. "Shepard's my mate, the mother of my children, and she's pulled my ass out of the fire more times than I can remember. If she wanted to settle on Tuchanka and raise Thresher Maws, I'd be scouting the nearest cave systems for eggs."

Despite everything, in his vision's periphery he could see the corner of Shepard's mouth quirk upwards. He returned the expression, one that he was sure had been hers first, but over time he had grown to subconsciously use on his own.

"I'm loyal to Palaven. Don't question that. But do me a favor and listen," Garrus said wearily, settling his elbow on his knee, head held in his open palm. "If you put me in a place of choosing between Palaven and Shepard…" Just as her voice had worn the burden of her inner-turmoil, Garrus' did as well. When Shepard touched his shoulder just barely, he found the courage to continue on. "I choose Shepard and our family every time." Lifting his head, he found his father's gaze, the color of blue he'd inherited not only in his colony markings but also his eyes. "Would it kill you for once in your life to push aside honor and obedience and stand by us too? If I swore to the Spirits to never ask for another thing in my life, would you do it?"

The Primarch's mouth opened but closed again, the words dying in his lungs. The struggle written across the face of his son and his mate—it had been a long time since he'd seen anything close. With Garrus, it had been when he'd finally spoken to his son over a vidcomm after the Normandy had crept its way back to Earth, only to learn that rather than returning home to Palaven to help with refugees and rebuilding, he was staying by Shepard's side, even if the prognosis every doctor and expert had given was that her waking—and waking with cognitive function—wasn't hopeful.

For Shepard, he wasn't certain he'd ever seen her so broken. Certainly, she'd been displeased with him and had no qualms about voicing her opinion on matters in the past, but mostly what he knew was only what he'd heard of secondhand from his son regarding the weeks and months after she _had_ woken from the coma. A shell of herself, Garrus had said. Plagued by nightmares, unable to cope with the extent of her injuries and being less than what she had been. And now, a decade later, it was his presence that was causing that pain to the two of them.

"I…" He coughed, hoping his own hesitance wasn't as blatant as theirs was. "Believe it or not, I _didn't_ come here to fight. This wasn't the conversation I came prepared to have."

Garrus snorted, his head bobbing, shaking side to side to dismiss his father's claim.

"I heard the rumor a few weeks ago, but I didn't think anything of it," the senior Vakarian went on, "because although you and I… we're not on the best of terms, I thought we were well enough off this last year to earn having my _son_ tell me I had another grandchild."

Shepard was the first to regard him, brows furrowed as she glanced between father and son. If she was searching for answers on Garrus' face, there were none to be found.

"And today," he paused, the Primarch's palm rising to smooth over his forehead and the beginnings of his long-grown fringe, "I found out it was true. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get information, real information, when _for some reason_ even the Shadow Broker claims something is false. Doesn't exist."

They both had Liara to thank for that. Neither had ever asked for it, what with how taxing it would be on her and Glyph to silence any mentions of such a whisper, but she'd apparently taken it on as her own mission for the family.

"If you're not here to yell at us—" Shepard started, but it was his turn to interrupt her and for once, she didn't fight it.

"Oh believe me," he stood, hands to his small waist, pacing across the living room rug as he took in his surroundings like any good predator. There were pictures on the walls, digital frames on shelves that held images of children and friends, toys scattered far and wide, and even dear little Alice on the floor, having fallen into an early slumber on her belly, head pillowed by a chubby fist. "I was angry—I _am_ angry. The kind of position you two have put me in… I wouldn't be surprised if some call for my resignation, choosing to believe it was I who helped you get the child."

A wave of guilt hit Shepard. These were the kind of fears she'd had those months ago in Victus' apartment, the two of them up half the night to tie up the loose ends that would inevitably come back to bite either, or both, of them in the ass eventually. It had plagued her that first night and on the flight over from Eden Prime, the scared child in her arms, as she tried to find the words to explain to Garrus what she'd done. But when all was said and done, and when the reality of being mother to three children had hit her, she'd left those thoughts aside for the more immediate and pertinent worries: can we really raise three? Will the girls accept him? Will he feel as though he doesn't belong? What if he gets sick and there isn't treatment for him here? Even still, questions of the sort ran through her head. There just hadn't been room for the worry over what it would do to Garrus' father as Primarch. Or that was, until now, when the reality of it was staring them in the face.

"Do you really think…?" Garrus questioned, guilt just as thick in his voice.

His father stopped, pulled at the hem of his shirt and straightened his shoulders. "The dissenters will be in the minority, of that I'm sure. I won't waste my time worrying over it until—_unless—_it comes to that."

"For what it's worth," Shepard said, scooting across the gap of space Garrus had earlier left for her and that she now no longer felt was necessary, "if there had been another way, I would have taken it."

The Primarch sighed loudly, resting his arm across the top of one of the lower reaching bookshelves. Sitting atop it was a standard frame, something similar to what was most commonly seen back on Palaven. There was nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary about it—save for the photo inside. It was of his son and what he assumed was the Turian child in question, the boy of a few months curled to his father's cowl while his hand tugged likewise at his father's larger mandible. Somewhere in the ashes of what had been the home he'd had with his late bondmate and two children, he was sure there had been a photo near identical in likeness, just of he and his son or daughter.

"Your mother wouldn't forgive me if I took him from you," he quietly admitted. She had always been the softer side to him, the kind of complement that others would have most often been left wondering why they'd gotten together at all. He was no stranger to whispers that he and his bondmate had clung to each other out of convenience and some sense of duty to reproduction, to the greater good of their homeworld. His children, he was certain, even believed that from time to time, but the fact remained that he'd married her for love. When the dust had settled from the war and he'd had a chance to breathe after his post to Primarch… when he'd finally gotten to grieve for the wife he'd lost—not to war, but to disease of body—it hadn't been a pit he'd ever thought he'd pull himself out of. He had, as it turned out, and he'd done his duty as was expected of him. Now, however, he was reminded of the grey in the black and white, something his mate had always done for him.

When he looked back to his son, Shepard had her arms around his neck, cheek pressed up against Garrus' mangled and scarred one. He could hear her but not make out her words as the translator wasn't good at picking up such softly spoken words at a distance, but they were given out of sympathy, support, comfort. She was consoling his son on the loss of his mother ten years past. Sometimes he forgot that others felt that woman's loss just as much as he did.

There was a caress of his fringe, such a touch that was usually reserved for privacy, but that Shepard wielded without care for the other occupant in the room. Somewhere deep in his chest, the Primarch felt his heart clench at the sight. His son was in good hands. He always would be.

"I came to meet my grandson," he said, speaking up after a moment, and Shepard and Garrus pried themselves apart. He amended his words quickly and carefully, "if you'll allow it."

Shepard, surprisingly, was the first to nod, rising from where she sat and moving towards where her daughter rested. With a quiet shush and hum to the little girl as she stirred and went back to sleep, her head on her mother's shoulder, she returned and offered her hand to Garrus and he took it, though wholly unnecessary. Their uneven number of fingers linked together as they moved in synchronicity back towards the hall.

"This way," Garrus said, motioning his head in their intended direction.

Before the Primarch even entered the bedroom, he heard the familiar call of a young Turian, a sound he wouldn't soon ever forget after the years he'd spent raising his son and daughter. It was a happy chirping, one that changed from a general nonsense to something more deliberate in its repetition, and when he saw his son bend down towards the crib that housed the child, he knew what it meant. That was the boy's call for his father, a unique inflection of untrained vocal chords. Every Turian child had a different one, or two really, one for each caregiver. He'd heard Hannah's referral to Garrus by a few affectionate terms for father, some of which didn't translate over well, but that he understood anyhow. He'd even swore he'd heard Alice mumbling a close, but crude, approximation of the word for father, Dad. But to hear a young Turian's call… it was unmatched.

"I know, I know," Garrus was saying to the child as he took him in his arms, "you don't like it when we leave you alone." The child confirmed his father's suspicions with a soft cry in affirmation.

There was a delicate nature to the way Garrus behaved, the same kind the Primarch had seen in his son and Shepard when either were holding Alice on the day after her birth. Shepard tugged lightly at the boy's clothes, fixing twisted sleeves and fabric that strained uncomfortably over his cowl. It seemed intuitive for her, and some fragment of him he refused to acknowledge felt remorse for any passing thoughts that had wondered if a human, even one as remarkable as Shepard, could raise this child adequately.

"It's your Grandpa, Caius," Shepard cooed. "Came all the way from Palaven."

Garrus turned on his feet, angling his shoulder towards the Primarch so that Caius could get a view of the stranger. The boy's eyes widened and then he burrowed into his father's neck, trying to hide himself away.

"Got a bit of stranger anxiety lately," Shepard explained, and ran her free hand up to tickle the back of the boy's neck. She moved around Garrus to stand behind him, and when Caius lifted his head instinctually, he found the comforting face of his mother. Her smile was bright and wide, and it earned her a joyful chirp. "No need to be scared, little guy, we're here, okay?"

Vakarian knew it was mostly pointless, a child that young couldn't understand much beyond simple statements and questions, and yet even _he_ wanted to believe in the notion that such a bond could be struck up between child and parent that Caius could comprehend.

Before the Primarch knew it, Shepard had taken a sudden hold of his wrist, tugging him closer and into Caius' field of vision. It reminded him so very much of the year before when Shepard had been the one to introduce him to Hannah, and now here she was, welcoming him to meet a grandchild yet again.

"You should hold him," Garrus suggested, and had already begun to shift the boy despite how much he fought to grip at his father's clothes. There were a few sounds of displeasure, legs and arms wildly flailing, but Garrus purred to his son, a trick of all new parents, and it offered a small measure of calm to the baby.

The feel was awkward at first for the Primarch, the boy only just barely tolerating the stranger while his eyes kept shifting between mother and father to assure himself that they wouldn't go far. It reminded Vakarian of Garrus as a boy; he'd been quite similar, always seeking comfort and closeness at that age, perhaps even moreso than other children. Just as his son had done not more than a minute prior, Vakarian let out a quiet purr from the back of his throat and suddenly, Caius' eyes were on him, captivated in the identical sound. Being kept from other Turians, it was the kind of warm vibration Caius had only ever heard from his father, so the Primarch didn't blame the boy for the piqued interest.

"Are you going to give him his markings at a year old?" He asked.

Garrus looked up from his son and over to Shepard, then back to his father. "We weren't sure, since he's not—ah—technically from our home on Palaven."

Vakarian shook his head, purring again to keep the boy entertained. "They hardly mean specific colonies anymore. Maybe thousands of years ago… but now they're just names, and Vakarian's a good one. He should be proud to be a Vakarian."

Mandibles spread in a sign of surprise, Garrus simply nodded. It was what he'd needed to hear.

The Primarch shifted his weight on his feet, gently rocking the boy to continue to keep Caius content. He had pride to keep, and he would be damned if he caused a newborn Turian to leave his arms, screaming for his mother and father. So far, so good.

"You know," he said as he swallowed, working up to his next words, "just because he's raised off world doesn't mean he's absolved of his mandatory service. That's just part of who _we_ are, and if you ever want him to be respected by others, he'll have to enlist at fifteen just like everyone else."

Shepard leaned into Garrus, her head to his upper arm. "I know," she struggled. "I don't really want to think about my six month old leaving me, but we've talked about it, we know he'll have to serve."

Garrus' arm slid around his mate's shoulders, keeping her close. He nodded in agreement with her words. "Don't think we won't be calling for favors when he goes."

"I don't care if you get him placement filing paperwork for fifteen years," Shepard added, "we've done enough fighting for the next thousand generations of our children. I'll take the special treatment I'm owed."

In rare form, the Primarch let out a quiet breath of laughter. For all his talk of the law, of rules, of duty—no part of him wanted to let the child in his arms grow up to see the kind of battle he and his son had both lived through. A long time ago he'd thought it was all necessary and character building, but the Reapers had taken some of the fight out of everyone, even the Krogan. If there was peace to be had, he would do what required in order to preserve it, just as he would do anything to keep his grandson safe.

"You're not planning on doing it again, are you?" The Primarch asked, motioning his head down to Caius. The expression on both Shepard and Garrus' face was one for the memory books, heads shaking in tandem, grimaces of exhaustive parenthood worn.

"Three's more than enough," Garrus supplied.

"Because I know the Hierarchy has finally thought about repealing the law that made _this_ illegal."

Garrus glanced in the direction of his mate, and for a second there was a questioning smile, a hint at something more left unsaid. "Well… we'll have to think about it."

* * *

_While this is technically the end of the story, there is an epilogue to follow that visits the Shepard-Vakarians a few years down the road. It will be posted as part of this fic in a few days time._


	7. Epilogue

More than anything at the moment, Caius missed his home. Gone for not even a day and he already longed for the smell, the feel, the warmth, and the memories brought with it. There was that particularly rickety stairway that led from the back deck down the hillside to the cove below, wooden steps that had worn for years, decades, and that he and his sisters had both earned their share of splinters from. Then there was the memory of that beach in particular, the waves lapping at the shore and licking his ankles, the feel of the cool water around him as he first learned to swim in the safety of his mother's arms. When it came to the home, as far as they now were from it he could still almost smell the lingering spicy scent of dinner cooked the night before, even as a cross-breeze of fresh air cut through the opened doors and windows. And someone, without fail, was always busy filling the house with a gentle hum, a reminder to the lives lived under that roof. Those, and a million memories more, did he absolutely already miss.

That morning he'd awoken in his room on Earth, the space that had been his since his parents had brought him home and called him theirs, and tonight… tonight he was on Palaven, across the galaxy and in a rented room that smelled like sterilizers and industrial strength laundry soap—and not the kind his parents used, something foreign and more prominent among the people of that planet. It was a far cry from home, and in his chest did he feel the stinging uncertainty of not knowing when he would see it again.

"You should be asleep," his mother said from the opposite end of the living room, standing in the doorway that connected his parent's bedroom to the main space of the hotel suite. Her arms crossed as she shifted her weight to one foot, shoulder leant up into the doorframe. "Got a big day tomorrow."

Caius' eyes rose immediately from the omni-tool swallowing his arm, and without a second glance at the orange glow, he powered it down, returning the light of the room back to just the fluorescence of the dimmed overhead ceiling lamp. "I'll go in a minute," he answered from his seat on the couch.

"How's it treating you?"

"Good," he said, lifting his arm for only half a second before replacing it where it had come to rest against his thigh. His mandibles flicked rapidly. "Alice is still jealous."

"Well, like I told her," finally straightening and abandoning her post behind, she headed in his direction, "you needed it for service. When Trouble goes off to school or does whatever it is she's planning for herself, we'll make sure she's prepared for it. But until then…"

His mother wasn't a tiny woman by human standards, and as a child he could recall distinctly the muscle memory of watching her from his smaller height, head tilted back as he followed her every move. Growing up, he had been her shadow, and though it was often said that children remembered very little from their early years, Caius had an uncanny ability to remember specific moments, days, details. Like how large she seemed to him when he was just a year old and barely more than knee high, how strong her arms had been around him when she picked him up and cradled him to her.

As he watched her cross the room, body shapeless and lost in a sleep-shirt and shorts a size too big, the memories were caught in contrast with the reality of her now. She still seemed just as strong even at her age, but she was small compared to him and his father and even his sisters that had a few inches on the family matriarch. Small, but still fearless—or that was how others always had described her—and a force to be reckoned with.

The couch cushion he occupied sank at the addition of her weight, and though at fifteen he knew the common mentality was to abhor every second of close proximity to one's parents, Caius leaned into his mother, head to her shoulder. She touched a hand to his exposed cheek and mandible, finger tips tracing along the pointed and distinct edge as she turned her head into his and laid a kiss across the plate of his forehead.

"It's okay to be scared," she whispered, and Caius knew her well enough to understand that she spoke softly with purpose. Thoughts like that bared no shame when said at such a low volume.

He felt a prickling in the back of his throat, the urge to make involuntary sounds of strife and struggle where a human might've cried. In only a few words, she had brought up every concern he'd tried to tamp down and away, out of sight and mind. He wasn't supposed to be frightened, not at his age and on the eve of becoming an adult—at least by his species' standards—but that didn't change the reality that deep inside he was terrified. Caius was scared beyond words and his body shook softly in an embarrassing sign of the truth.

She hushed him softly and twisted towards him, wrapping his larger chest and carapace with her arms like she'd done for the preceding fifteen years when he wasn't full grown and it was a much easier feat. "Everyone is," she said, her voice and equal giveaway in her precarious state. "Even if they say otherwise."

"Not you," he barely managed.

"Especially me."

"When were you ever scared?"

"Plenty of times." She eased back into the couch, one arm still loosely draped around her son's middle. Her head tipped towards the bedroom she shared with her mate, and with a hint of a smile, she spoke. "Like when your Dad took a damn missile to the face."

Caius' brow plates shifted down, confused. "Is that what those scars are from?" They'd been there since before he'd been born, and rather than seeming like an alien part of the man he'd grown up calling _Daddy_, the scar tissue simply was just another part of the Turian's identity. His father had those and many more, just like his mother did.

Her mood was suddenly somber. "Sometimes I forget how little we actually told you kids about our lives _before._ We thought we were doing a good thing," she sighed, a single shoulder shrugging in defeat rather than indifference. "But maybe we should've been honest."

"I've read about it on the extranet," he admitted defensively, but still ducked his head to avoid her reprimanding gaze. "I know all about it."

She hummed deep, the kind of sound she made when she disapproved of something he or his sisters had done. "There's only so much you can get on there, very little of what we did became public record. I can promise you any story you've been told hasn't been the whole truth."

Caius fell into a short-lived silence, pondering his mother's words. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because…" she exhaled loudly, one hand waving through the air without aim or cause. "…It's hard to think about, Caius. Sometimes I feel like the life your Dad and I used to have is a dream because it just seems like it can't possibly be real compared to what I have now. You were born into a good time, just far enough away from the destruction to only see the galaxy rebuilding itself. There are still whole worlds in ruin, but the horrors of it…" His mother stopped, eyes gone glassy as she stared at the far wall, seemingly lost in a memory. "You've been spared that, and I'm glad you and your sisters will never know it."

"Do you miss being a soldier?"

"God no," she said quickly, but there was something her voice that Caius couldn't discern between longing for what was gone or pain at the recollection.

"But you were _heroes_," he insisted with the same kind of pride he'd always taken with him wherever he'd gone, pride that came with growing up knowing the weight of the last name he carried. Caius Shepard-Vakarian, that was the kind of name that even to this day turned heads. "You saved the galaxy! Kids used to tease me after they made that movie about you two. On every planet from here to the Terminus there's a statue or a park or a school named after you, Mom. How could you _not_ miss it?"

When he looked to his mother's face, he had the stark realization that he'd made the wrong call a second earlier. It wasn't longing after all, it was strain. All at once he felt sorry for the enthusiasm he'd shown at such a late hour.

"Heroes," she shook her head as she fought through the memories. "I never felt like a hero back then. It wasn't like everyone says, Caius. It wasn't fun or heroic or anything they try to make you believe. More nights than not I went to bed thinking we didn't have a way out of all of it, but knew I had to try anyway because there was no one else who could. You'll never understand how many people I saw _die,_" and that last word was a whisper, like she was afraid if she spoke it too loudly another person's breath would be pulled from their lungs a second too early. "So when you wonder why I don't miss it, think about that. Everything I have now… it's been a refuge from the past."

Caius couldn't look at his mother afterwards, guilt coming over him at the realization that it had been his words that had forced her to assess what was long buried. Her other hand, the one that wasn't around him, it was gripping the couch cushion, knuckles gone nearly white from the strength she exercised.

"I fought for the mothers out there with children, so that they could see their daughters," she released the fabric finally, and this time there was gentleness when she touched his cheek once more. It had the effect of drawing his face back in her direction. "…And sons, again. I fought for the children I didn't have, didn't ever think of having back then."

He'd heard the story of how he'd come to be theirs, a tale told in various interpretations of the truth throughout his childhood. Before he'd even understood biology well enough to question how a Turian and a Human could produce two human daughters and a Turian son, his parents had been honest with him. By blood, by DNA—Caius wasn't theirs. But by everything else that mattered, by love and family and all that was right in the galaxy, he was their son. The story of what had convinced Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian to settle down, though, that wasn't something he'd never been told.

"What changed your mind?"

She smiled, the warm and genuine kind that painted even his very oldest memories. Before she could get a word out, the two of them were no longer alone, his father casting a long shadow as he entered from the bedroom. He was still rubbing away the sleepiness from his face as his similarly flanged voice, rough with lack of use, echoed.

"_Who_ do you think?"

Like it had always been, his mother was speaking hardly before the man's words died. "We're in London, about to finish the war for good and I'm trying not to fall to pieces talking to your Dad…"

"And I suggested," he interrupted as he stepped into the kitchenette and began to fill a glass of water from the faucet, "that when it was all over we retire somewhere warm and tropical, think about having a few kids."

Husband and wife traded a grin. His father took a long drink of water and set the glass back into the sink before joining them in the living room. The coarseness of voice was gone. "You okay?"

If it came down to who he wished had found him in his earlier scared and emotional state, Caius was glad it was his mother. It wasn't that his father had been strict and imposing and cold, nothing could have been further from the truth. But his father, well, he had gone through this rite himself decades earlier, and Caius just couldn't imagine that his Dad had wavered the night before his service began, needing comforting. Like the man who raised him, Caius wanted to be strong. And brave. Always brave.

"We're just talking," his mother said for him, and Caius was relieved she didn't give him away, even as she stroked the swell of his carapace out of her mate's view.

His father took residence upon the edge of the low lying coffee table in front of them, knees knocking with Caius' own. Soon there was another sympathetic touch, this one from his father, his open palm to his boy's thigh.

"You're going to get through this," his Dad said, locking eyes with Caius. They were blue, so deep blue just like Hannah's. Spirits, he missed his older sister, too. It had been months since he'd last seen her.

"I know," Caius whispered, although he didn't truly believe it.

From the side, his mother rested her head on his shoulder, and he felt silly in taking comfort from the gesture since it was behavior more belonging of a child to an adult.

"Maybe we should send him off with a few stories, Garrus," she suggested.

Across the gap of space, his father's facial plates shifted in consideration as he scratched his unscarred mandible. For the first time, Caius looked at the other one, the one mangled and damaged and then repaired, with an observing eye. He tried to imagine how it looked before it healed, and though he could almost see the dripping blue blood and open wound, he still couldn't fathom a single soul ever having taken a _missile_ to the face and living to tell the tale. His father's voice pried him away from his thoughts.

"Whatever you hear here," he said, "it's not to be repeated, not even to your sisters."

"We'll tell them in time," his mother agreed, but was fast to amend. "_When_ we know they can handle it."

Through the years, when curiosity was piqued, Caius had come to raise questions to his parents. Usually it came after a vid on the television, a history channel running a marathon on the anniversary of the war, or even the odd journalist who stumbled up to the isolated home with questions and their omni-tool's recording feature set to on. It was a wonder, he thought now, that more hadn't found them, hadn't hounded Shepard and Vakarian even now, twenty five years later.

He did remember an incident when he was younger, a sharp and painful memory pushed to the recesses of his mind, when an unknown face had shown at his school and had nearly convinced he and Alice, all of five or six years old, to come with him. His parents had intervened, arriving just in time, and he could still hear the force in his fathers voice as he threatened the stranger, the tears his mother had wept when they'd gotten home. At the time, he hadn't comprehended the gravity of the situation that had seemed innocent to his childish point of view, and it had been years since he'd last thought on it. He could understand now, left to imagine what might have become of him and Alice had they not been so lucky. His mother and father had been there early every day after that, patiently waiting for their children with watchful eyes. He never saw the man again.

Those questions he'd posed, however, had always gone unanswered from the members of his family. _When you're older_, they'd promised on the rare occasion they acknowledged his inquisitive mind at all. More often than not, they'd simply changed the subject, distracting him away from what he'd earlier asked. To now have carte blanche so quickly thrust upon him, Caius felt as though he was letting down that past version of himself, the eager little boy seeking out the truth. His failsafe was to turn to the biggest mystery.

"What happened on the Citadel?"

"Not that," his mother replied before he'd even finished his question, head shaking. Caius hadn't even had the time to notice how fast his father had grasped her hand, their fingers linked and locked together. "Anything but that."

"Do _you_ know?" He tried again persistently, this time asking his father.

"What your Mom's remembered over the years, she's told me," he said, nodding towards his spouse.

"And he's the only person who knows. Somewhere in Alliance HQ and Council records there's a report I dictated after I woke up and it only has a fragment of what your father knows. It was all I remembered at the—"

Though some of the details were more juicy, Caius was stuck on one. He was missing a part of the story. "Woke up?"

"Coma," she supplied.

"She was in bad shape after the Citadel," his father continued for her, shifting forward on the coffee table, close enough now to stroke his wife's cheek. It was more for his benefit than for hers, Caius could tell, as he was the one left with a tremor in his hand. "Worse than any civilian knew." He moved his talon to the other side of her face, the one nearest Caius, and traced a faint line of a scar that ran from her ear down her throat. Another mark Caius had grown so used to seeing that it had merely become invisible until pointed out. "Nearly cut her carotid artery open, they said. Concussion, broken bones, dislocated hip, burns. If she woke up at all, the doctors said she wouldn't be _her_." He stammered over the word, and his wife leaned in, eyes shut as their foreheads touched.

It was an expression of affection his parents had been showering Caius with since his birth, but when shared between the two of them, it couldn't have been more different.

"She woke up… and Spirits, she was my Shepard," he continued, struggling. "After that they said she wouldn't ever walk, too much damage."

"But you had me walking again," she responded, and while the conversation had once been for their son, it was clear that now it was for the man she'd spent the last three decades alongside. Her mouth brushed his, and Caius looked away, not out of embarrassment or anything of that sort, but because it was private and because there was too much said silently between his parents with that action that he didn't feel he had the right to know.

It was quiet after that, and though his mother was whispering something to his father, Caius couldn't make out her words nor the reply his father gave to her ear. They parted after another minute, and from the corner of his eye, Caius saw his mother wiping at her cheeks.

"Anything but the Citadel," she said, attempting to hide the pain in her voice. "Any other story and we'll tell you the truth."

"Tell me," he said, finally decided, "tell me about Saren and when you met."

* * *

By morning light, the hotel suite was as silent as the home on Earth. The Shepard-Vakarians, like the other families gathered and scattered across the pavement outside of the Toleta military training grounds on Palaven, lingered close together, savoring the last moments before another one of their brood left them behind. Shepard took her son in her arms, the engulfing feel of Garrus around them both.

"Don't do anything dumb," she said, eyes shut as she breathed in the scent of metal and pine of her youngest child. It was unfair that she should have to give him up so soon. He was a man now, fully grown and ready to serve the planet and people of his species, but that didn't make the goodbye any easier on her. Fifteen, he was only fifteen, and she had so dreaded the time as it passed, wishing for just a little more with her only son. Tears wet her eyes even while they were closed, and as she squeezed him tighter, she felt Caius return it. He'd gotten so big, so strong, and yet she could still feel him in her arms that very first time. Caius had been nothing then, so slight that a gust of wind could nearly have taken him from her.

"We didn't fight through hell just to eventually lose our son," Garrus reiterated, patting the boy's back as he eventually released Shepard and Caius. "So play and work smart."

Caius nodded in his mother's loosening hold. He would take his parents' advice to heart.

"Remember what I said last night," Shepard reminded him, pulling back though her open palm lingered against a mandible. She had his complete attention and it reminded her of him as a boy, as a baby, looking up at her from the crook of her arm. "And remember you don't owe anyone anything. Not because of your name, not because of who your parents are. I've seen too many people lost," she paused, and all she could think of was Tarquin Victus on Tuchanka, pushed too far and too unprepared for the task given to him, left to sacrifice his life to die with honor, "because of the pressure put on them. I'd rather you keep your head down and come home to me. We raised you for fifteen years, Caius, and we expect to have you for the rest of our lives."

Caius, for all the steadfastness he tried to exude, for all the courage he tried to build in himself over the last few months, choked up on his words. "I want to make you proud."

Garrus' hand found its home on his son's other cheek, both sides now occupied by the touch of his parents' hands. He offered Caius a smile, although his eyes didn't possess the kind of happiness his mouth may have tried to. "You already have, and you always will."

"Boot camp will be hard," Shepard said, "but you'll make it through. And when's all said and done, your Grandfather will find a place for you, whatever it is you want to do."

"I don't want special treatment." He shook his head. "I have to earn it."

"That's my boy," she whispered, dropping her hand just as Garrus did. "But the option's always there."

"We'll be up to see you when you've got a break."

"And we're just a vidcomm away."

"Besides," his father teasingly encouraged, a glint to his eye, "you might even meet a girl."

Shepard elbowed Garrus exaggeratedly in the abdomen, holding back her laughter all the while. "You'll find friends at the very least. I know you've been lonely on Earth, and if I could've raised you here, Caius, I would've. Sometimes I think I didn't do enough for you, and I'm sorry for it," she confessed. That had been their worry since the first day as parents to a Turian. Would he never fit in with his own kind? Would they not accept him? Were they damning their son to a life of struggle, of trying to fit in with the human children while they resided on Earth?

"I was happy at home," he insisted, desperately trying to wash away the remorse his mother carried in her voice. "I can't imagine growing up somewhere else."

She didn't let him stop her. "You'll be at home here, too. I know that."

There was a thankfulness in her eyes when she heard the voice of her eldest daughter's arrival behind them. Nineteen years old and not changing anytime soon, Hannah remained faithfully and eternally late. Shepard turned just in time to see the girl, her long hair—a color more vibrant than Shepard's own dulling shade—bound and tied in a braid, as she tossed her small duffel bag to the ground and embraced Alice. The sisters, both nearly an identical copy of one another—save for the color of their eyes and Alice's own much shorter, freshly cropped locks—said their hellos and parted all in under two breaths, and then Hannah was upon her parents, wiry arms curled about her mother's neck and then her father's cowl.

"It's _not_ my fault," she insisted, even without letting go of Garrus. He affectionately nuzzled the top of her head, a habit with his firstborn that was unlikely to soon be forgotten. "Took forever to get a shuttle from the spaceport." Her attention turned from piling excuse after excuse on to her mother, and towards her Turian brother, launching herself into Caius' unsuspecting arms.

"Nothing stupid," she recited as if the family had rehearsed their speeches and coordinated beforehand. Hannah winked at Caius and relinquished her hold on him, palm clasping his shoulder. "I couldn't stand it if you left me alone with Alice for the rest of my life."

"Shut _up_," Alice retorted, slipping past her parents after having had enough of waiting for her turn.

Shepard motioned to Garrus, stepping back and out of earshot of their three grown children gathered together to say their goodbyes.

"Alice told me something this morning." She hooked her arm around his waist, content to watch over them from a distance.

Garrus slid his about her shoulder. "And?"

"She wants to join the Alliance when she's of age, hopes she can get stationed somewhere with Caius."

His mandibles clicked quietly, eyes studying the body language in view ahead of them. He'd gotten better at that over the years, and he held a pride to the fact that when something was bothering his wife or his girls, he could read the shift of muscles in their face as well as the tension they held in their body. Alice transferred her weight anxiously between her feet, fingers folding and unfolding her hands together. There had been tears in her eyes nearly every day for the last few weeks, and he knew that on the way home they would spill yet again, this time when they returned as just three instead of four. Alice would be alone in the house with them for the first time, and deep in his chest, his heart ached at the loneliness he knew she would feel.

The twins, they had always called them. It was still true.

"We can… try to work something out," he said, and already knew they would. Whatever favor could be called upon, they'd take full advantage for the sake of their children.

"What are we going to do?" Shepard asked, not louder than a whisper. "Caius will be on service, Hannah's got a few more years studying on Thessia. We'll blink our eyes, and Alice will be leaving us, too. We've got an empty nest, Garrus."

"There's always traveling. I'm sure there are a few planets even we haven't seen."

"Mm," she hummed, resting her head against his arm and shoulder, encased in the warmth of his body while Palaven's sun rained down on them. "But I'm not sure exotic planets will have the same charm if we're not shooting some Geth in the process."

"Please, Shepard, you haven't shot anything in twenty years. If those bottles do invade, I'll be the one protecting us."

"And what?" She looked up to him. "You think you're better off because you went to a target range on Palaven _twice_ since we had Hannah?"

He huffed dramatically, but his words didn't carry the annoyance he was trying to project. "Better than nothing."

Shepard hugged herself to his side, and like always, Garrus returned the action, even kissed the crown of her head. "Garrus?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think we did right by them? By raising them so far removed from who we were, the people we used to be?"

"I think they were kids, Shepard, and we raised them like they were. They didn't need the burden. Now…" His eyes shifted off his wife to focus on their three children.

Caius, he had always been a precocious child, and even despite the fear he had now, Garrus knew he would grow into being a strong man, a good Turian. Seeing someone else with those blue stripes and markings over his face, that had been something Garrus had never thought he'd have. Having his own family hadn't ever been at the forefront of his thoughts as a younger man, and then there were the period of years beside Shepard he had come to expect that his death might result from their actions. When they'd finally been able to breathe easy, to settle down and think about children at all, he'd accepted from the start the idea that they would be human. Human, but still _his_. He would love them—and Spirits, had he loved his daughters in ways he didn't know possible—but Garrus wouldn't soon forget the day he'd sat his son down just after his first birthday, and painted the patient boy with the markings of their colony, their clan, their name. The day Caius had really become a Vakarian.

With Alice, he often wondered how she might have turned out if they hadn't had Caius. Would she have been just as fearless, just as strong-willed after not having to duke it out with another child so close in age? She was just like her mother and sister in so many ways, head-strong for one, and that was a trait he had long decided descended directly on the maternal line. Part of him was wound with anxiety at the thought that his daughter, halfway through her fifteenth year, wanted to join the Alliance and put herself in harm's way. She had plenty of time to change her mind between now and legal age, but somewhere inside, Garrus knew she wouldn't. He could already see her in her dress blues, arm rigid in salute, a mirror image of Shepard in her younger years. Spirits, he prayed, that they could keep his daughter and son safe.

And Hannah, Garrus thought as he watched their eldest, while Caius and Alice seemed to be carbon copies of their parents of appropriate gender and species, Hannah was the perfect blend of them both. Stubborn, but gentle when needed. Smart and resourceful. She wasn't a born fighter, much to her parents' happiness, and she reminded him so much of the people he and Shepard might have been had things been different and a war and military service not found them first. What she'd do with her life, he didn't yet know, and Garrus was certain she hadn't discovered it for herself either, content to simply learn and study while she could avoid the big decisions in life. Someone, maybe his father decades ago, would have insisted a girl of her age take a stand, make a choice, commit to something, but he and Shepard both felt contrary: this was what they fought for, so a child could grow and never have someone else or a war make that decision for them.

"Now?" Shepard prompted as her mate fell into an extended lapse of silence.

"Now… I think they'll come to us when they want to know, and we'll be ready to tell them."

* * *

_Finally, we've reached the end. Thanks for the continued support/reading/comments. While this fic was a struggle for me at times, there are still a lot of plotless moments I wished to fit into this world (at various points in the timeline) but couldn't. Please check my other stories for one titled 'Earth Family Shakarian' which will be featuring all my related one-shots as I write them.  
_


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